Snapdragon heating issues could force Samsung to use Exynos in Galaxy S27 Ultra

Samsung has exclusively used Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips in its Galaxy S Ultra phones for the past few years, and the Galaxy S27 Ultra was expected to follow suit. However, it now appears that the upcoming Snapdragon processor has heating issues, which could force Samsung to use its in-house Exynos chip instead.

A report from SEDaily claims that Samsung's smartphone division recently conducted internal performance verification of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chip for the Galaxy S27 Ultra. During testing, the company reportedly noticed that the chip exceeded its temperature thresholds under sustained high-load tasks, leading to performance throttling.

Samsung raised its concerns with Qualcomm last month and set a mid-October deadline to resolve the heating issues before finalizing its processor choice. If Qualcomm fails to meet Samsung's performance, stability, and thermal standards, the South Korean tech giant is prepared to use the Exynos 2700 chip.

Designed by Samsung Electronics' System LSI division, the Exynos 2700 is built on Samsung Foundry's second-generation 2nm process node (SF2P) and has a 10-core CPU. Internal testing indicates that the chip's performance is on par with, or slightly better than, Qualcomm's offering.

Choosing an Exynos chip would not only reduce costs for Samsung but also boost the utilization of its chip manufacturing division, ultimately strengthening its overall business. The Galaxy S27 Ultra is slated for mass production later this year and will launch in early 2027 alongside the Galaxy S27, Galaxy S27+, and Galaxy S27 Pro.

The Galaxy S27, Galaxy S27+, and the Galaxy S27 Pro could use the Exynos 2700 chip in most countries.