Hand-crafted for horsepower: Apple A6 SoC

By SemiWiki

September 28, 2012

For all the raving and ranting and hand-wringing about the iPhone 5, the centerpiece of the device – the new A6 SoC – is proving to be a marvelous piece of engineering.

The initial rumors about the A6 months before release were it was headed in the quad-core direction, to thwart some of the more-cores-are-obviously-better marketing to the masses. That turned out to be a head fake. Subsequent reports on release day said it was dual core, likely ARM Cortex-A15 based. But as the first information comes out of Chipworks and the benchmarking sites, a more compelling picture is emerging.

In my previous Smart Mobile SoC: Apple post, I pointed out Apple’s string of acquisitions included P. A. Semi and Intrinsity, both of which had unique EDA technology which could be coming to bear inside future processors. Some of our community members questioned if that was pertinent, as much of the human capital has moved on to other destinations as buyout agreements expire. Whether or not the same bodies are still in Apple’s employ, the impact of what Apple has learned about EDA is starting to become clear.

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