Regardless of the difficulty of designing faster CPUs (that is to say, not by just increasing the clock, which has not been an option for a while), for a compan

Regardless of the difficulty of designing faster CPUs (that is to say, not by just increasing the clock, which has not been an option for a while), for a company that also manufactures the actual silicon, the cost associated to the fabrication processes is incredibly high, and few potential competitors can assume that without an established base. It's no wonder that their only real "competitor" is fabless.