There has been huge interest generated about Apple's A6 processor being used in the latest iPhone 5. That is largely because Apple had not tried processor design at all so far. Its last processor A5 was a Samsung design and was based on ARM designs. Speculations continued as Apple acquired processor design teams. Now it is confirmed that this team has delivered and delivered quite a punch apparently. This new A6 is equivalent of a ARM Cortex A15 core but is an entirely different design. It is compatible externally to ARM core alright[2].
It has delivered a great performance for the iPhone 5. A recent tear-down report says the CPU core has been manually laid out rather than some EDA tool doing it, for the best possible performance[1]. A CNET report confirms that the performance is faster than expected[3].
It will be interesting to see what else comes out of this design group. Also interesting will be if innovation continues into the time when Jobs is not around. In one of my post on providing air-cover for a team to innovate, I had found that Jobs was capable of it. Will it continue in the new dispensation!
References:
- MacRumor, Teardown of Apple's A6 Chip Reveals Manual Layout of Custom Dual-Core CPU, http://www.macrumors.com/2012/09/25/teardown-of-apples-a6-chip-reveals-manual-layout-of-custom-dual-core-cpu/
- International Business Times, Apple Inside: Engineers Tweaked A6 Chip, Expert Says,http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-inside-engineers-tweaked-a6-chip-expert-says-843109
- CNET, Apple's A6 processor appears faster than previously thought, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57521088-37/apples-a6-processor-appears-faster-than-previously-thought/
