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Samsung has announced its upcoming flagship chipset, the Exynos 2600, which is expected to power the Galaxy S26 and S26+ in Europe. The chip is built on Samsung's first-generation 2nm process, but the improvements seem modest at best, and European buyers (and perhaps global buyers as well?) might once again end up with the weaker variant of Samsung's flagship phones. Now, let's dive into this article, where I will discuss everything about the Samsung Exynos 2600, including its specifications, performance expectations, and which devices it will be used in.
Samsung Exynos 2600 Overview
As said above, the Exynos 2600 is Samsung's flagship chipset for 2026 and will reportedly power the Galaxy S26 and S26+ in Europe. However, Samsung isn't using it for the Galaxy S26 Ultra, which will instead use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 globally. But this decision was quite predictable. And it confirms that Samsung isn't confident enough to use Exynos at the very top tier. It's the same story as before.
2nm Manufacturing Process
Samsung is building the Exynos 2600 on its first-generation 2nm Gate-All-Around process. This is a new manufacturing node for Samsung, and the company has publicly shared what gains to expect from this technology.
Compared to Samsung's second-generation 3nm process, the 2nm node delivers around 5% performance improvement, 8% efficiency improvement, and 5% chip size reduction. But these numbers don't seem to be so revolutionary either, especially for a next-node transition. But its essential to note that the so-called "2nm" or "3nm" process node does not literally imply transistors are 2 nanometers in size. Chip manufacturers have moved away from literal measurements years ago, and these names now just indicate generational improvements.
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Yield Numbers
Current yield rates for the Exynos 2600 are around 60%, which means about 60% of chips produced on each wafer are functional. Samsung considers this "good enough" for mass production. Samsung has reportedly secured around 25% of Galaxy S26 series chip orders. The rest go to Qualcomm since the Ultra model will use Snapdragon globally.
Beyond smartphones, Samsung has also secured a massive $16.5 billion contract with Tesla for its AI6 chips. This deal was largely secured due to confidence in Samsung's early 2nm manufacturing capability.
The Exynos problem
The Exynos 2600 continues Samsung's reliance on ARM's standard Lumex CPU core designs. By contrast, Qualcomm uses a custom Oryon CPU architecture, and Apple uses fully custom CPU cores. This means Exynos typically struggles with lower real-world performance, less efficient tuning, and weaker sustained performance under heat. Even when Exynos chips look competitive in synthetic benchmarks, they often disappoint in real-world use.
But other than that, Exynos chips have also historically been viewed as the weak link in Samsung's global flagship phones. European buyers have consistently ended up with lower performance, worse efficiency, and higher thermal output compared to Snapdragon versions sold in the US and other markets. This has created a two-tier system where Samsung's flagship phones perform differently depending on where you buy them.
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Samsung Exynos 2600 Availability
The Exynos 2600 will debut in the Galaxy S26 and S26+ when these phones launch in 2026. European buyers should expect to receive Exynos variants, while the Galaxy S26 Ultra will use Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 globally.
