Robert Triggs / Android Authority
TL; DR
- Arm design may be partly responsible for the overheating problems of Samsung and Qualcomm.
- There may be a solution, but it will not be easy to achieve.
Samsung is in the news for throttling its phones, but the underlying problem is likely to be more widespread and worse.
The Samsung app admits to throttling, though it does say to protect phones from overheating. There may be more to Samsung’s claim than some initially thought, and it may not be entirely the company’s fault. According to reports, Samsung and Qualcomm may be responsible for the underlying arm design based on the flagship processor.
Unlike Intel, Arm does not make its own chips. Instead the firm designs the processor and licenses those designs to any interested company. Qualcomm and Samsung are Arm’s biggest clients, two companies using arm designs in their respective Snapdragon and Exynos flagship processors.
Interestingly, Apple’s chips aren’t affected by arm design. Industry experts believe that Apple and Arm will be able to better tune the processors for use with iOS. In contrast, Samsung and Qualcomm work their chips to work with different device manufacturers and versions of Android, making it more difficult for those processors to optimize, such as Apple’s A-Series or M1.
“The iPhones are based on the Arm chip design, but Apple and the Arm protect the processors for use in iOS,” he said. Business Korea The industry source added, “On the other hand, Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm are developing application processors for use in different models from multiple manufacturers and it seems that the processors are leading to problems using the design without any changes.”
Hopefully, Qualcomm and Samsung will come up with an effective way to tune their design to compete with Apple’s energy efficiency. Otherwise, overheated phones and throttled processors may become the new norm.