Samsung sees ongoing SoC losses drag down System LSI's 2026 performance

Samsung’s sustained losses in its System LSI division reveal a widening technological gap with TSMC in advanced-node SoCs that is now operationally untenable. This erodes its competitiveness for high-end contracts from Qualcomm and NVIDIA, prompting EDA and IP vendors to deprioritize support for Samsung’s process roadmap. Under tightened U.S. CHIPS Act subsidy criteria and reduced Korean R&D tax incentives, Samsung’s cost disadvantage below the 5nm node will intensify. TSMC is poised to solidify pricing power at 3nm/2nm, while MediaTek and other Taiwan, China-based fabless firms accelerate their foundry shift toward TSMC. If Samsung fails within the next 18 months to rebalance via higher Exynos integration or automotive SoC breakthroughs, its logic foundry ambitions may regress from ‘global No.2’ to ‘regional fallback,’ fundamentally reshaping Asia’s semiconductor manufacturing hierarchy.