Apple’s A4 Processors Packs ARM Power
- February 6th, 2010 - 2.21 pm UTC
- Apple Rumour, iPad
- Alex Brooks
Apple's A4 Processor inside iPad
In an interview with The Guardian, chief executive of ARM Warren East has given the “strongest hint yet” that the company’s technology is inside the iPad.
The iPad officially—according to Apple’s spec sheets—uses an in-house Apple A4 SoC (system on chip) processor, but speculation has suggested that the chip incorporates ARM’s Cortex-A9 MPCore processor, more commonly known as the Snapdragon chip.
In the interview with the UK newspaper the chief executive hinted that the mystery would soon be over saying, “I would doubt whether anybody other than Apple has taken the iPad to bits yet,” adding, “But in a month or so it will be available and somebody other than Apple will take it to bits – and then we will know.”
Speculation has risen from the ability to run iPhone and iPod touch applications directly on the iPad, the apps on the App Store are designed for ARM processors.
East reportedly teased, “But I cannot possibly confirm anything,”
Comments
Rzah 6th February 2010, 17.00 pm
I don’t think anyone thought it wouldn’t be ARM based, It’s expected to be a custom design by PA Semi though, not an ARM reference design available to anyone.
Photo Booth Guys 6th February 2010, 18.19 pm
I am very interested in how this will play out on the iPhone and how it will separate the iPhone from other smart phones on capabilities.
Rzah 6th February 2010, 20.07 pm
I wouldn’t expect a new CPU for the next iPhone, it’s still space constrained (battery) compared to the iPad and by all accounts is fast enough. My money is on a new case, camera upgrades and 4.0 Software, front facing cam or IR would be nice but Im not holding my breath.
A4i 10th February 2010, 02.34 am
Sorry, but embedded development seems to be outside of the realm of the press which copies/pastes each others articles in a giant circle jerk. This is no different than what is in most digital picture frames or microwave ovens or cars or whatever. Anyone can download the dev kit and design their own ARM-based chip and send it off to a fab-for-hire to produce in any quantity desired. As far as PA Semi is concerned, there is a lot more to the story of Apple’s acquisition and whoever is raising their involvement in this is so full of shit it’s not even funny.