Recently, Arm unveiled new chip blueprints and software tools aimed at enhancing smartphones’ ability to handle AI tasks more efficiently. But they didn’t stop there – Arm also implemented changes to how they deliver these blueprints, potentially accelerating adoption.

Arm is evolving its solution offerings to maximise the benefits of leading process nodes. They announced the Arm Compute Subsystems (CSS) for Client, their latest cutting-edge compute solution tailored for AI applications in smartphones and PCs.

This CSS for Client promises a significant performance leap – we’re talking over 30% increased compute and graphics performance, along with an impressive 59% faster AI inference for AI, machine learning, and computer vision workloads.

While Arm’s technology powered the smartphone revolution, it’s also gaining traction in PCs and data centres, where energy efficiency is prized. Though smartphones remain Arm’s biggest market, supplying IP to rivals like Apple, Qualcomm, and MediaTek, the company is expanding its offerings.

They’ve launched new CPU designs optimised for AI workloads and new GPUs, as well as software tools to ease the development of chatbots and other AI apps on Arm chips.

But the real gamechanger is how these products are delivered. Historically, Arm provided specs or abstract designs that chipmakers had to translate into physical blueprints – an immense challenge arranging billions of transistors.

For this latest offering, Arm collaborated with Samsung and TSMC to provide physical chip blueprints ready for manufacturing, which was a huge time saver.

Samsung’s Jongwook Kye praised the partnership, stating their 3nm process combined with Arm’s CPU solutions meets soaring demand for generative AI in mobiles through “early and tight collaboration” in the areas of DTCO and PPA maximisation for an on-time silicon delivery that hit performance and efficiency demands.

TSMC’s head of the ecosystem and alliance management division, Dan Kochpatcharin echoed this, calling the AI-optimised CSS “a prime example” of Arm-TSMC collaboration helping designers push semiconductor innovation’s boundaries for unmatched AI performance and efficiency.

“Together with Arm and our Open Innovation Platform® (OIP) ecosystem partners, we empower our customers to accelerate their AI innovation using the most advanced process technologies and design solutions,” Kochpatcharin emphasised.

Arm isn’t trying to compete with customers, but rather enable faster time-to-market by providing optimised designs for neural processors delivering cutting-edge AI performance.

As Arm’s Chris Bergey said, “We’re combining a platform where these accelerators can be very tightly coupled” to customer NPUs.

Essentially, Arm provides more refined, “baked” designs customers can integrate with their own accelerators to rapidly develop powerful AI-driven chips and devices.

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As the world’s largest smartphone and memory chip manufacturer – along with being a key player in many consumer devices including TVs, washing machines, fridges, and more – Samsung has established itself as a tech leader.

The convergence of powerful emerging technologies such as AI, IoT, and the cloud, have the potential to radically shake-up the industry and dethrone established players if they don’t keep pace. Samsung has made clear it has no intention of giving up its castle.

“In a hyperconnected society via 5G, AI and internet of things, a company that innovates user experiences will be a global business leader,” said Koh Dong-jin, head of IT & mobile communications at Samsung, during an AI forum held at the company’s Seoul R&D Center.

“5G, AI will lay the ground for technology innovations for smartphones, wearables, speakers, internet of things, augmented reality and virtual reality, and provide a turning point for our everyday lives.”

Samsung has seven dedicated AI research centres across five nations; the US, UK, Korea, Canada, and Russia.

The company’s first AI mobile processor with a built-in 5G modem is set for release later this year to simplify the development of highly-capable devices with support for both of the important new technologies.

Amid a global slowdown in smartphone sales, Samsung will be hoping its AI and 5G investments help to fortify its position as a global tech leader in a rapidly-changing world.

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There are two new chips in the 7-series – the Snapdragon 730 and 730G – along with one in the 6-series, the Snapdragon 665.

Kedar Kondap, VP of Product Management at Qualcomm, says:

“With the introduction of the Snapdragon 730, 730G and 665 Mobile Platforms, we are bringing features such as sophisticated AI, exceptional gaming and advanced camera capabilities to a broad spectrum of devices at exceptional performance.

Each iteration of Snapdragon drives immense innovation that will surpass customer expectations.”

The base Snapdragon 730 boasts double the AI processing power of its predecessor using Qualcomm’s 4th-gen multi-core AI Engine. A Qualcomm Hexagon 688 processor inside the 730 supports improved base scalar and Hexagon Vector eXtensions (HVX) performance, as well as the new Hexagon Tensor Accelerator.

Qualcomm has also packed in the Spectra 350 which contains a dedicated ISP for computer vision. It claims to provide up to four times as much power savings as its predecessor.

As for the Snapdragon 730G, that ‘G’ stands for ‘gamer’ and intends to boost the gaming performance of devices packing it.

While the 730 features the Adreno 618 GPU, the first time a Qualcomm 7-series chip has supported the Vulkan 1.1 graphics API, the 730G claims to offer 15 percent faster rendering. Furthermore, Qualcomm claims it’s “collaborated with consumers’ favorite game-makers to optimize Snapdragon 730G for a selection of the world’s top-rated games.”

A dedicated ‘Jank Reducer’ feature boasts that it can reduce stutter by up to 90 percent in games running at 30FPS.

Perhaps most impressive, however, is the Snapdragon 665 which brings more capable AI processing abilities to lower-end devices.

While the new 7-series chips feature the 4th-gen, the Snapdragon 665 is packing the 3rd-gen of Qualcomm’s AI Engine with the Hexagon 686 DSP. It too claims to offer double the performance of its predecessor.

Packing the Spectra 165 ISP, the Snapdragon 665 provides AI-powered scene recognition and auto adjustments like HDR. To account for the growing number of unique camera setups on today’s smartphones, it supports up to three cameras which can include telephoto, wide-angle, and ultra-wide lenses.

Qualcomm has also partnered with Morpho to enhance the camera functionality of the Snapdragon chips.

Toshi Torihara, VP of Morpho, commented:

“Morpho is proud to collaborate with Qualcomm to integrate our image processing software on mobile. With the Snapdragon 665 mobile platform, we brought MovieSolid, our state-of-the-art image stabilisation implementation, to deliver industry-leading video experiences to the mobile camera industry.

We believe this partnership will further enhance smartphone camera capabilities, bringing mobile imaging & AI technologies to the next level.”

For gamers, the Snapdragon 665 features the Adreno 610 GPU which also supports the Vulkan 1.1 graphics API to help provide an improved gaming experience for those who on lower-end devices.

Commercial devices based on the Snapdragon 730, 730G, and 665 are expected to be available in mid-2019.

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