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.
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.
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.