ARM Cortex-X1 Mega-core Evolution
Last year, ARM officially released its Cortex-A78 and Cortex-X1 architecture, the former position as a large core, the latter is a mega-core. Cortex-X series is ARM’s new high-performance core architecture, the first product is Cortex-X1, whose performance is 30% higher than the A77, 22% higher than the A78, and 100% improve machine learning capabilities.
Cortex-X1 also allows customers to customize and build more different features, but this requires customer involvement in the early development stage. Today, Xiaomi brought some detailed highlights of mega-core Cortex-X1 used in Snapdragon 888 SoC on Xiaomi 11.
Xiaomi phones have always been the first to carry the Snapdragon 8 series flagship mobile platform, and this time, Xiaomi 11 is the world’s first Snapdragon 888 flagship processor, bringing the most cutting-edge mobile technology innovation to the majority of consumers.
The most significant enhancement of Snapdragon 888 is the introduction of the ARM Cortex-X1 mega-core architecture, which is the ultimate architecture in the pure pursuit of performance. X1 is about 2.3 times larger than the A78 mega-core, and its giant size brings giant energy, and its peak performance is increased by 30% compared to the previous generation A77, which is an unprecedented performance leap and truly opens up the mega-core in the Android camp. That is an unprecedented performance jump, truly opening up the era of mega-core in the Android camp.

Cell phone processor faces many constraints when designing. For a long time, it has been necessary to balance the chip area and energy efficiency. But more and more high-load scenarios are putting higher demands on cell phone processor performance. The design goal of Cortex-X1 is to pursue the ultimate peak performance to enable better performance of cell phones under large-scale complex computing.

In contrast, the Cortex-A78, which is also a new architecture, focuses more on sustained performance. If Cortex-A78 is a marathon runner who balances speed and endurance, then Cortex-X1 is a 100-meter sprinter with great explosive power. The combination of Cortex-X1 and Cortex-A78 makes Snapdragon 888 an all-rounder that can sprint and lead for a long time.
The Cortex-X1 delivers a 30% increase in peak performance compared to the Cortex-A77 and a 22% increase compared to the latest generation Cortex-A78. This is the first true super core for Android.