ARM has announced the next generation of smartphone processors, set to deliver up to 20 percent or greater performance than the prior generation. It includes something special: a new Cortex-X1 design, an optimized version designed for “ultimate performance.�
In the smartphone industry, ARM designs its Cortex CPUs, Mali GPUs, and Ethos machine-learning processors, then licenses them to companies like Qualcomm. (This differs from the PC chip business, where AMD and Intel keep their designs proprietary—and Intel manufactures its own CPUs as well.) Those chip designers, in turn, are permitted to customize and enhance them, depending upon their license terms.