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[News] Arm’s Reported 300% Price Hike Could Threaten the Future of Samsung’s Exynos Chips


2025-01-21 Consumer Electronics / Semiconductors editor

According to a report from MoneyDJ, citing Sammobile, semiconductor intellectual property (IP) leader Arm is reportedly planning a significant price increase of up to 300%. This move could severely impact the future development of Samsung Electronics’ Exynos series processors, as highlighted in the report.

As Sammobile notes, Samsung is currently facing several challenges. One major issue is the low yield rate of its 3nm manufacturing process, which has hindered its foundry division’s ability to secure external orders. Additionally, due to this yield issue, the upcoming Galaxy S25 flagship smartphone will not feature Samsung’s in-house Exynos 2500 chipset. Instead, it will rely on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite processor.

Arm’s Reported Price Hike: Major Impact on Samsung’s Exynos Chips

Citing Reuters, the MoneyDJ report highlights market rumors that Arm intends to raise prices by as much as 300%. According to Sammobile, this poses a significant challenge for Samsung as it primarily purchases ready-made CPU cores from Arm. The Exynos 2400 chipset features a 10-core CPU based on Arm’s Cortex-X4, A720, and A520 cores.

If Arm raises its prices, Samsung’s costs for purchasing CPU cores are expected to skyrocket, significantly affecting its flagship Exynos chips used in premium smartphones.

The report highlights that Arm’s reported price increase could create substantial difficulties for Samsung, particularly as most Android OEMs favor Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors or MediaTek’s Dimensity processors over Samsung’s Exynos chips.

Samsung’s Lack of Custom CPU Cores Poses Disadvantages

By contrast, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors no longer use Arm-designed cores, as highlighted in the report. The Snapdragon 8 Elite features Qualcomm’s custom-designed Oryon cores. While Qualcomm does utilize Arm’s licensed instruction set architecture (ISA) to maintain compatibility with Arm-based software such as Android, the report points out that Arm’s reported price hike will have a far smaller impact on Qualcomm compared to Samsung.

As noted in the report, Samsung previously developed custom cores for its Exynos chipsets, such as the M5 custom core used in the Exynos 990, which powered the Galaxy S20 and Galaxy Note 20 in 2020.

However, consistent underperformance of Exynos chips compared to Snapdragon processors led Samsung to dissolve its CPU development team and shift to sourcing ready-made cores directly from Arm, as the report states.

Uncertain Future for Samsung’s Exynos Chips

The Sammobile report indicates that it is unlikely Samsung will resume developing custom cores, as this would require years of effort and substantial investment. In fact, the report points out that it might actually be a more cost-effective solution for Samsung’s Mobile eXperience (MX) division to directly purchase Snapdragon processors from Qualcomm.

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(Photo credit: Samsung)

Please note that this article cites information from MoneyDJSammobile, and Reuters.

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