Mobile Processors of 2018: The Rise of Machine Learning Features

Not surprisingly, this year's smartphones feature faster processors than those from last year--that happens every year. But what is new this year is the predominance of machine learning features that just about every processor vendor is touting as a way of differentiating their devices. This is true for the phone vendors who design their own chips, the independent or merchant chip vendors who sell processors to phone vendors, and even the IP makers who design the cores that go into the processors themselves. First a little background: all modern application processors include designs (often referred to as intellectual property, or IP) from other companies, notably firms like ARM, Imagination Technologies, MIPS, and Ceva. Such IP can appear in various forms--for example, ARM sells everything from a basic license for its 32-bit and 64-bit architecture, to specific cores for CPUs, graphics, image processing, etc., that chip designers can then use to create processors.