SoftBank’s Arm Rolls Out New Smartphone Technology
SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) owned chip designer Arm on Monday rolled out new technology for mobile devices and Taiwan smartphone chip maker MediaTek Inc (2454.TW) said it will be using it for its next-generation product.
MediaTek, a longtime supplier of low- and mid-tier smart phone chips, has been pushing into the market to supply chips for premium smartphones, once dominated by rival Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O), which has been in a legal battle with Arm since last year over chip licensing agreements.
MediaTek said the new chips will help improve the performance of its next-generation smartphones.
Arm sells blueprints chip designers use to build their own hardware. It is launching Immortalis-G720, a chip for video image processing and AI applications, and the Cortex-X4, a processor that would be the brains of the mobile device at Taiwan’s Computex conference.
Arm said both new chips have 15% better performance than their previous generations, and the Cortex-X4 uses 40% less power, key for smartphones that need to keep battery use time long.
Arm also said it has “taped out” the Cortex-X4 at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, which means it had a chip manufactured at the factory, an expensive process usually done by chip designers that sell the final chip.
Arm has however noted that they are not in the business of selling chips.
Jamiu Ogunshe/ Reuters.
