Samsung may be making a huge change to next year's follow-up to the Galaxy Z Flip 6 foldable flip phone, with a new report claiming the Korean company plans to move away from Qualcomm chipset used in the current model in favor of its own Exynos silicon.
Up to now, Samsung has only used high-end Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs in its foldable phones worldwide. However, the Korean publication Chosun (via 9to5 Google) claims that Samsung will turn to the Exynos 2500 in the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and the Galaxy Z Flip FE. The latter device would be a lower-cost addition to Samsung's lineup of foldable phones.
Contrast that with the Galaxy Z Flip 6 that came out earlier this year. It runs on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, currently Qualcomm's top-of-the-line silicon.
We've heard a number of reports all year that Samsung has struggled to make enough of its next-generation Exynos chip. The Chosun report claims the company has finally figured out 3nm processing and succeeded in "stabilizing the 3nm manufacturing yield" at its chip-making facilities
"It is true that we have had difficulties in mass production since we first applied the gate-all-around (GAA) process in the second-generation 3nm foundry process,” an unnamed Samsung official told Chosun. “Now that the process has stabilized, it is only a matter of time before we begin mass production.”
They added that there was some thought to put the Exynos 2500 chip in the Galaxy S25 series, which is rumored to be arriving next month. But it sounds from the report that the quantity of Exynos chips won't be sufficient in time for the early 2025 launch. But that "it will be possible" to put in the premium models of the Z Flip, which tends to appear in the latter half of the year.
Samsung has been fighting to fix its foundry business this year, and we presume that desire to get Exynos chips out is to reduce the company's reliance on Qualcomm chips. The new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip that will power next year's Galaxy S25 lineup is supposed to be between 20% and 30% more expensive than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 system-on-chip.
The Chosun report does not indicate if this Exynos setup is for the entire globe or just in certain regions. In previous years Samsung has put the Snapdragon chip in phones released in some parts of the world, while Exynos-powered phones arrived elsewhere. In fact, this is exactly what happened with the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus earlier this year.
We've heard rumors that Samsung may raises the prices of its flagship Galaxy S25 line in its home country of Korea, but it's unclear of that means higher prices for the rest of the world.
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