Apple A4 Processor Teardown

Plocmstart writes "Here's what EETimes.com is claiming to be the first teardown of the A4 processor. 'Apple's iPad chip is a single-core ARM A8 made by Samsung. Through various benchmarking testing, UBM TechInsights was able to find out the details of the A4 processor.'"

Comments

Interesting

[Pojut]

Anyone know what Google is planning on stuffing in their new tablet?

Re:Interesting

[PopeRatzo]

Anyone know what Google is planning on stuffing in their new tablet ?

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Re:Interesting

[obarthelemy]

spyware !

Re:Interesting

[biryokumaru]

Hrm... That brings a whole disturbing new level to the question "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

Re:Interesting

[michaelhood]

Anyone know what Google is planning on stuffing in their new tablet ?

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Slashdot broke my mod points somehow, but this deserves to be modded to plus infinity. However, as anyone who saw the iPhone OS 4.0 presentation knows, there will be plenty of ads on the iPad too soon enough.

No Way

[LordBmore]

This can't be right... TFA doesn't make a single reference to magic.

Re:No Way

[WrongSizeGlass]

MOV r0, 'Magical' ;
LDR r1, r0 ;

There you go, all better ;-)

Re:No Way

[edittard]

Are you saying this isn't so much a teardown as a lookat, a thinkabout or a getdrunkandspeculatewildly?

Re:No Way

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, yes. I once accidentally reversed the 5 V and 12 V leads on a harddrive and saw the magical blue smoke escape from controller chip. Electronics work only so long as that smoke stays inside the chips! (I wonder how they get in it in there in the factories...)

Re:No Way

[marcansoft]

Does not assemble. Try this:

get_magic:
                ADR r0, magic
                BX lr

magic: .ascii "Magical\0"

Re:No Way

[gyrogeerloose]

I have a feeling a vast majority of people do think of computers and electricity as not necessarily the dictionary's definition of magic, but something very similar.

Indeed. The obligatory Arthur C. Clarke quote:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

definitely applies. Even when you know something about the technology, it can still seem like magic.

Useful / single page URL

[BitZtream]

http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224701036&printable=true&printable=true

Next time guys, save us the effort and use the link that doesn't require us to click next 4 times to read an article that fits on half a page.

Oh ... timothy, nevermind.

Re:ARTICLE IS GOATSE REDIRECT

[Darkness404]

This is /. we do not read TFA, therefore it doesn't matter if it is Goatse or not, no one is going to see it.

also, multicore?

[poetmatt]

also, I thought the world claimed it was multi-core? This teardown summary says it's single core.

A4 is a System-on-a-Chip, or SOC, that integrates the main processor [ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore i.e. Multi-Processing Core, identical to ones used in nVidia Tegra and Qualcomm Snapdragon]

meanwhile, from the summary:

number of ARM cores: 1

hmm.

Re:also, multicore?

[atrus]

Multicore was wild speculation. It was pretty much obvious that it was a Cortex-A8 once the first units hit the market.

Re:also, multicore?

[gumbi west]

Find a review that says the UI slow.

Re:also, multicore?

[negRo_slim]

What does the UI have to do with processor performance?

Re:also, multicore?

[devjj]

Apple's just proving the point that consumers don't care how "fast" a chip is if the experience is that the device is fast.

Re:also, multicore?

[trouser]

Apple's just proving the point that consumers don't care how "fast" a chip is if the experience is that the device has an Apple Logo.

Re:also, multicore?

[BasilBrush]

Brand loyalty first has to be earned. Apple didn't get lucky, they created a lot of great products and earned their brand loyalty.

Re:also, multicore?

[soppsa]

It's all that matters in the end. This device isn't for you to play Crysis on or compile your gentoos.

Re:also, multicore?

[tehcyder]

Hi Steve!

Congratulations.

[spun]

You found a way to make Slashdotters actually click through to the article. Now, if only you could find a way to make them read it.

No but it does have neon.

[leuk_he]

It does have Neon but no powerpc. Strange that this information did not came from someone with a compiler. Does apple withhold information what code can be generated? Are devs so spooked by the apps license?

Re:No but it does have neon.

[ShakaUVM]

>>Does apple withhold information what code can be generated?

The only officially approved code generation method for the iPad is to send a nicely worded letter to Apple, along with X dollars. In Y months your app will be compiled for you and put up on the app store, for which you'll receive no royalties.

Re:No but it does have neon.

[FuckingNickName]

I wish it were that easy! In the real world, developers go through all this and have to worry about their app being rejected.

Upshot: display tech dominates battery life

[Anonymous Coward]

They show that power usage is:
0.5 Watts at idle with the display disconnected
1.75 Watts at idle with display at min brightness
4.25 Watts at idle with display at max brightness

They estimate that the A4 CPU uses 0.5 to 0.8 Watts when browsing the web over WiFi.

Conclusion, FTA:

Until display technologies make big moves downward in power consumption the consumer experience of battery life may be driven as much or more by the LED drivers, opto-mechanical design of the back-lighting, display settings and wireless connectivity employed versus the CPU itself.

teardown my ass

[veg_all]

tfa:

With further analysis, including chip-level reverse engineering, we may be able to identify whether innovations such as Intrinsity’s patented cell libraries were used to optimize the critical paths in the ARM core itself.

IOW, "It looks kinda neat, wonder what's inside!"

Next steps

[Yvan256]

A4 for iPad
A4 for next iPhone
A4 for next iPod touch
A4 for next AppleTV, possibly let it play games too.

Re:Next steps

[Anonymous Coward]

A4 for President

Re:Next steps

[duckbillplatypus]

i prefer u.s. letter size.

8 minute abs

[goombah99]

Well since apple came out with the 4 minute Abs, I assume google will have to go with the 3 minute abs. ie. the A3.