Apple's iPhone 5 Uses A6 SoC
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 12, 2012 1:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone 5
This one caught us off guard, but Apple just announced the A6 SoC powering the new iPhone 5 features 2x faster CPU and GPU performance compared to the iPhone 4S. Apple reserves major Ax SoC number iterations for architecture changes, combine that with the performance claims as well as some other stuff we've heard offline and there's one conclusion: the iPhone 5 uses ARM Cortex A15 cores inside. Update: It uses a custom Apple core!
Our guess is two cores. No word on the GPU yet.
The A6 is 22% smaller than the A5, although it's not clear if that's a package or die size claim yet. There's a good chance this is built on Samsung's 32nm LP HK+MG process.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
118 Comments
View All Comments
gunblade - Wednesday, September 12, 2012 - link
The A15 is simply a CPU core and it has nothing to do with what is hanging on the AXI bus. USB3 IP is quite common and if Apple desired can easily license IP from multiple vendors (Synopsis and etc). I think it is more of that the extra serdes power consumption is not justified in this case for the speed increment.surgexx - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
Right, but if it's available and all the new macs have USB3, why not use it on the SoC?surgexx - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
Especially when Samsung Exynos 5 *HAS* USB3 on the host side....I just don't think Anand is right here -- either that or he knows for sure and can't tell his source (which sucks for us), but I just don't think he's right.tipoo - Wednesday, September 12, 2012 - link
I guess he knows it's A15, just can't tell us yet to protect the source. I'll take his word for it then. That's good, more useful than four A9 cores.Fx1 - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
Your title sounds like you are certain but your comments sound like you know jack shit.Your blog was the only one in the world to claim A15 cores.
If your wrong then your basically responsible for the biggest misinformation of the A6 in the entire world.
I find this irresponsible.
huh!! - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
You do know this is a blog entry right?Lucian Armasu - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
I have to agree. Half of the people reading not only this post, but all the other posts that others made and said the same thing because "Anandtech said it" (Proof: http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/136085-whats-ins... will think it has A15 CPU's even AFTER Anandtech and everyone else finds out it's actually still something based on A9, if they are indeed wrong on their assumption.A lot of people will miss the info update, and will be buying the iPhone thinking it has A15's.
tipoo - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
Something tells me Anand is more sure than he can say, but we'll see.zorxd - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
It's a guess. Even if he happens to be right, it's still a guess as of today.steven75 - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
From your comments in this thread it sounds more to me like you actively want it to be untrue because it will clearly be better than what's shipping in current Android phones, and Android fans DO NOT like is to lose in spec wars and checklist bulletpoint battles. (Even though, um, rational people agree the only thing that matters is the end result.)