This paper deals with the exponential stability analysis problem of neutral systems with mixed time delays and nonlinear perturbations. Using the Lyapunov theory and the free weighing matrices method, a delay decomposition approach is developed by introducing a new quadratic Lyapunov Krasovskii functional, which is constructed by uniformly dividing the delay interval into multiple equal length subintervals. Based on this, a new delay dependent robust exponential stability criterion is derived in terms of Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs) technique. Numerical examples are carried out to support the applicability of the proposed approach and to demonstrate the effectiveness of our results.