Everyone has to start somewhere, they achieve better performance than Tensor CPU on Pixel, to me that's an achievement.

There’s a big gap between spec’ing an SoC by configuration code, and designing one from the ground up.

That difference amounts to who, if anyone, gets the credit for being competitive with Apple.

The custom integration is pretty big in and of itself. But the most important thing is that all these ARM C1 Ultra core is accessible to everybody. And it is performing well against Apple's CPU. The old Apple does better SoC advantage is vanished.

We will have A20 vs C2-Ultra this year. Can't wait to see it .

I wonder just how different their processes really are, considering both can be safely described as "full custom design".

I write this especially in the context of apple always being about The Look, so they might also describe their design process in a more optimistical light in advertisement material.

An insider take would be helpful.

ARM invested significantly lately in CPU design, which can be seen through history of job openings and news, so they caught up to Apple. Xiaomi does only SoC integration and CPU configuration (i.e. choosing how much cache, how many units of what, etc whatever ARM gives as options to choose). So, this is not comparison of Apple CPU vs Xiaomi, but Apple vs ARM ;-) CPU design is very long term and risky. NVIDIA has had it (i.e. Carmel soft CPU) and trimmed it significantly (maybe they reignited it again, since they were not allowed to acquire ARM). However Apple has just launched M6. They all know what competition is going to have next few generations through covert/overt industrial espionage (I remember in Intel their competitive analysis team was sourcing info through chain of sources to "wash it")

> I wonder just how different their processes really are

Night and day.

Apples has in-house silicon dev groups starting (at least) 2008 w/ acquisition of PA semi for their low power CPUs, followed by the acquisition of Anobit in 2012(?). Apple does their own architecture, microarchitecture, etc, full cycle development.

Apple licenses ISA, not designs.

And by “licenses” you mean they were a founding company of the ARM consortium way back in the 1990s.

No, I mean licenses to use the ISA. The act of paying for the license has nothing to with Apple being or not being one of the founders.