World's First 2nm Mobile Chip Debuts

Recently, Samsung Electronics officially unveiled the Exynos 2600, the world's first mobile system-on-chip built on Samsung Foundry's 2nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) process. The chip is set to make its commercial debut in the upcoming Galaxy S26 flagship smartphone lineup.

According to Samsung, the Exynos 2600 is powered by Arm's latest CPU cores and supports a new instruction set, delivering major gains in both processing speed and on-device AI capabilities. CPU performance is said to be up to 39% higher than the previous generation, while NPU performance jumps by as much as 113%, enabling larger and more efficient AI workloads directly on the device.

On the graphics side, the chip integrates the new Xclipse 960 GPU, based on AMD graphics technology. Samsung claims overall graphics performance has doubled, with ray tracing performance improving by up to 50%, a notable boost for high-end mobile gaming and advanced visual effects.

From a CPU architecture perspective, the Exynos 2600 adopts a 10-core "1+3+6" tri-cluster design. This includes one ultra-high-performance core clocked at up to 3.8GHz, three performance cores running at around 3.25GHz, and six efficiency cores designed for power-saving tasks. The balance is intended to deliver strong peak performance while maintaining everyday efficiency.

The GPU, internally codenamed "AMD JUNO," is widely expected to be the Xclipse 960, operating at up to 985MHz. It supports mainstream cross-platform graphics APIs, including OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 3.0, and Vulkan 1.3, ensuring broad compatibility for modern games and graphics applications.

Imaging is another focus area. Samsung plans to introduce AI-powered ISP algorithms to enhance scene recognition, noise reduction, and color reproduction. The Exynos 2600 also supports camera sensors of up to 320 megapixels, meeting the demands of next-generation mobile photography.

Thermal management has seen a significant upgrade as well. The chip uses Samsung's advanced Heat Pass Block (HPB) packaging technology, which replaces the traditional DRAM-on-top layout. In the new design, DRAM is moved to the side, allowing the copper-based HPB to sit directly above the application processor while still maintaining contact with both the AP and DRAM. This structure improves heat dissipation efficiency by around 30% compared with the previous generation, helping ensure sustained performance and system stability.

Industry rumors suggest Samsung may consider making this HPB packaging technology available beyond its own products in the future, highlighting its confidence in the thermal design behind the Exynos 2600. Overall, the new chip signals a major step forward in advanced process technology, AI performance, graphics, and thermal engineering for next-generation mobile devices.