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A Close Look At Apple's A4 Chip
PabloSandoval48 writes "Apple's A4 processor is heavily influenced by Apple's long-established relationship with Samsung and represents an evolution rather than a revolution in circuit design. A team of experts takes a look at the evidence on A4 in an attempt to determine its origins and the influence of recent Apple acquisitions in the area of chip design."
guess I'll go RT4FA
first comment?
A team of experts takes a look at the evidence on A4 in an attempt to determine its origins and the influence of recent Apple acquisitions in the area of chip design."
The team of experts concludes the A4 was designed by Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Revolver.
...but if I remember correctly, the same A4 chip in the iPad is supposed to be showing up in the new iPhone. Can someone confirm?
Living With a Nerd
I hear that the new A4 chip will allow the iPad to grow to 210 × 297 mm!
A team of experts takes a look at the evidence on A4 in an attempt to determine its
A4?....A4!!!! I GOT BINGO!
I don't see what's so interesting here. It's a standard, general-purpose, consumer-grade embedded processor. There are billions of these around in all sorts of devices.
Is this one of those things that people get excited about just because it's from Apple, but is otherwise totally unremarkable?
Looks like Apple is looking to dominate the entire vertical space from the silicon in the chip and selling directly to consumers with Apple stores along with all the software that consumers buy. And it wants a cut of everything:
1. Hardware of the iDevices
2. Monthly kickback from AT&T on iPhone users monthly fees. (This is the real reason for exclusivity to shitty AT&T, Apple is just too greedy)
3. A forced 30% cut of all software sales for the iDevices.
4. And now a 40% cut of ad sales in Apps(while conveniently banning Admob).
Looks like Apple is leaving no stone unturned to make money hand over fist and is rolling in billions of cash. What boggles the mind is why can't they pay a few more bucks to the people working in Foxconn(who are jumping off buildings) who actually make these iDevices? Couldn't hurt Apple's bottomline really that much, can it?
This space for rent.
The A4 chip doesn't really seem to have any really fancy technologies in it. Mostly, it's just repackaging and combination of other components that already exist, but instead of combining them in the generic, general purpose manner they normally are, putting them all together in one chip allows a bunch of superfluous stuff to be eliminated.
Are you adequate?
that's some "close look" with not much to show for it.
I don't see what's so interesting here. It's a standard, general-purpose, consumer-grade embedded processor. There are billions of these around in all sorts of devices.
Is this one of those things that people get excited about just because it's from Apple, but is otherwise totally unremarkable?
I think it is just because it is Apple. For some reason, the thought of Apple being involved in processor design makes these people jizz in their pants.
This is just a re-hash (to put it kindly) of many existing articles spun out and waffled into 5 page views. There is absolutely no information here that hasn't been printed already.
Apple is not a semiconductor company. Sure, they bought one but it's not their core competency. So like everything, they thought they could do a better job than everyone else at this too.
They're going to have to spend money keeping the A4 competitive with other ARM SoC offerings from companies who make them for a living. They're going to have to keep them competitive with the ever-improving Atom chips which are slowly encroaching on sub-watt territory held by ARM. Otherwise, their hardware will lag behind. They're already in a world of hurt with so many vendors ramping to release Android portable devices of all sorts form factors, now they have to compete in the CPU arena too?
I just don't see the point. It'll be interesting in 3 years to look back and see if this was a wise decision.
Chipworks had some interesting eye-candy die photos and a breakdown of the iPad and A4 for those who haven't seen that yet:
iPad Teardown
I don't see what's so interesting here. It's a standard, general-purpose, consumer-grade embedded processor.
Not exactly, which is what the article is all about. While the A4 is nothing revolutionary, it's not an off-the-shelf item either. Apple took a general purpose processor and re-designed it specifically for use in its mobile devices.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Everybody did something like this as a senior year project in EE, and certainly didn't copy something like ARM (that would be points off!).
Are there ARM designs yet which support the Trusted Platform Module specification? (Remember this fuzz years ago wrt. Microsoft and TCPA/NGSCB?)
If I were a hardware company and want to sell DRM'ed content with a hardware dongle, this would be the way to go, having the encryption key which ties the media to the device stored directly inside the CPU would make my platform very attractive, maybe even a de-facto standard, for certain media control freaks. And you could make sure that only signed code runs it from the moment it boots, turning it into the ultimate closed system where the producing company stays in control.
What makes it interesting is indeed only that it's made by apple. However, if you have a look at these market cap numbers, you may see why this could have some significant implications:
Apple
Intel
Of course it is an off-the-shelf processor, with an Apple logo on it.
Can I ask you what part that is not off the shelf (logo not counted)?
What part is redesigned *specifically* for their devices (logo not counted)?
Say what you will about the position Apple is currently in, but they have been screwed over many times by other companies (Microsoft with Office, Adobe with Premiere, IBM with PowerPC @ 3ghz), and they figured that it was critical to their success that they take control of their own destiny.
What they've done is made a streamlined version of an ARM processor that is useful for their current needs; they do not need to "keep up" with anyone in that they get their processor to do what they want it to do for this particular need. If anything, by not having to cater to anyone but themselves, they have the ability to have custom hardware, but still based on the widely-used ARM architecture, so they don't have to completely re-tool when they come up with an A5 or A6 or whatever. Jobs himself said that they are not in the business of licensing their technology. You won't see an A4 being offered in lots of 100 to anyone for other purposes, it's a chip for Apple and their products only.
I was wondering too about the wisdom of this move, but it shows that they are not going to hitch their wagon to anyone's horse but their own, and that they have the ability to modify the horse to pull whatever load is necessary at that moment, a new iPad, new iPhone, AppleTV, whatever.
Don't get too caught up measuring market cap. It's a number that financial analysts like to toss around, but it has little bearing in the real world.
Just look at what Apple sells, versus what Intel sells. Apple sells a huge number of over-priced products that provide little to no productivity improvements. People buy Apple products for entertainment, for pleasure, and as a status symbol. A hipster looking at Facebook on his iPad bought with daddy's money isn't contributing anything to society, aside from consuming a few $5 lattes and putting some cash in Starbucks' coffers.
Intel, on the other hand, goes out of its way to provide the most value at the lowest price possible. Their products are used not just for entertainment/pleasure/status symbols, but many users actually use them to get real work done. The real value that Intel provides is far greater than that which Apple could ever hope to provide.
It's foolish to compare them on market cap.
Didn't samsung end up as the last supplier licensed to use Alpha tech?
Since I choose to believe that Apple has resurrected Alpha, no reasoned argument can change my mind :)
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Well, if it's off-the-shelf, where can I procure it ?
This SoC is no more off-the-shelf that any ASIC, even if built from already-designed IP blocks.
I don't see what's so interesting here. It's a standard, general-purpose, consumer-grade embedded processor. There are billions of these around in all sorts of devices.
Isn't that sorta like saying a Core i7 is just another x86 chip. It's a standard, general-purpose, consumer-grade processor. I don't know about you but I can't design an ARM chip and you discount the work of engineers who did the design work. From what I know about it, Apple designed the chip to be more powerful and and more energy efficient than a standard A8. Making something to do both isn't an easy task. Now it won't turn into the next Skynet but it is an improvement for those who might use it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I agree, and admit that I put it unnecessarily sensationalist. I'm certainly not claiming that Apple will be producing chips for enterprise servers anytime soon. However, I do believe that we will never see an Apple product equipped with an Intel Atom. Further, I wouldn't say that the iPhone is without "business cred".
Anyway, I also vaguely remember that when Apple switched their computers from PowerPC to Intel, they said something about being pragmatic about processor choices, and that the day when they switch from Intel to another manufacturer's processors might come fairly soon. So, who knows, maybe another 5-10 years down the road we will see powerbooks based on Apple processors...
Did you read the actual article? Do you know anything about how the ARM architecture works?
Its sort of a "plug and play" architecture-- they license out the core design, the Cortex A8, but that design isn't set in stone. It includes options and modules that you can decide what to include or not, and there's all kinds of ways you can choose to optimize it and modify it to suit your needs.
Some people take this design and market their own customized version of the architecture for various purposes -- Nvidia's Tegra is one such. Its an ARM chip, but not all ARM chips are created equal (and it depends greatly on the purpose one customized an ARM chip for).
The A4 isn't some entirely new sort of chip-- its not as custom as Quallcomm's Snapdragon-- but its also not the same as any other chip on the market. They left some things out. They added some things in(or, more, changed some things). They tweaked its design to suit their purposes. Its not a general-purpose chip, needed for multiple vendors and different device types, so they left off some things to optimize it.
Therefore... its not off-the-shelf. You can't buy one. If you're an ARM-licensee, you could make one if you really wanted if you peered close enough and figured out which modules all the various parts on the die are.
Of course its not literally off-the-shelf.
Neither is a Atom CPU with a different logo painted on it (and to be specific so that you do not misinterpret me, I do not claim that the only difference of the A4 is the logo).
The parent of my post said was:
"While the A4 is nothing revolutionary, it's not an off-the-shelf item either. Apple took a general purpose processor and re-designed it specifically for use in its mobile devices."
I see no evidence for that Apple redesigned anything. Do you know any re-design that is made "specifically for use in its mobile devices"?
If Apple is so innocent, why do you even have to mention the names of the other companies???
If Apple is so guilty, then why NOT mention those other companies?
You have to answer that first before you are allowed any more paranoid rants. You are trying to defect all ills of the world to fall upon Apple's shoulders. Has any other company but Apple in fact even offered a bonus to workers who work on the products the companies are having produced there?
Even if all of them are evil, Apple is less so if only because of that one aspect. Yet, you single Apple out - so obviously you have some other motive in mind rather than Foxconn worker well being. It's pretty sick to take advantage of Chinese suicides to further your own holy crusade against Apple (and Apple only).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is overly pedantic, but it's the "iPhone 4", not the "iPhone 4G". It is the 4th generation of the iPhone, so it's "4G" in that sense, but it does not make use of any 4G mobile network.
Well since we are being pedantic, the iPhone 4 (and 3Gs for that matter) has full support for a variety of 4G networks being deployed, basically LTE.
AT&T is supposedly doing some trials next year and rolling out 4G in 2011.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple is not a semiconductor company. Sure, they bought one but it's not their core competency.
Why can't it be?
Why would a company so focused on making consumer electronics and computers, not decide that over time it is of benefit to move in the direction of also being strong in semiconductor design?
After all, it's not like they built the A4 from scratch thinking they could do better than anyone. That would be hubris. No, instead they took the ARM core and customized around it, which seems perfectly within the limits of what Apple can do given the companies they have acquired. There's no reason to think they are overreaching in abilities here.
Over time they may do more actual design, but it makes perfect sense to start down that road now that they have the capital given the direction they are headed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Surely people are missing the next step? Apple want's to bring the SoC design in-house. It's currently a very fragile all-in-one unit provider. You pay for nothing revolutionary in an Apple product, instead you pay for a unique design/interface and the Apple goodwill 'mark-up'. The latter of which is a license the print money. So really Apple need to hit the semi-conductor market to maintain market dominance through R&D. In-house developments don't run the risk of being licenced to your competitor, and give you a technology lead that is hard and expensive to beat.
But did we all forget about the possible purchase of ARM? I don't think it'll happen soon (ARM's stock is higher than 2002). I don't really want it to happen either. ARM licences to far too many companies, therefore there will be monopoly considerations and any deal will be scuppered by a race to it by anyone with £5bln cash: Nokia, Motorola... even IBM or MS. The loss of ARM will actually hurt the "open" fabrication platform they've developed (think of all the individual ARM fabers that are out there... no are licence, no work) and we use benefit from (ARM chip competition has driven down price).
And what about the PowerVR licensing from Imagination Technologies - Apple increased it's shareholding this. I predict that apple will buy ImgTec by the end of the year. Possibly over the summer. They've got an good back catalogue of products, and despite the fact they didn't hire me, I think they're a brilliant acquisition for Apple: real chip fabricating people. A lot of their new stuff is low power which apple lacks experience with. Relying on an ARM development time-table means competitors can get to market relatively quickly, with similar specs. ImgTec are a good fit.
Matt
It helps to keep things in perspective. AMD has a market capitalization of 6 billion dollars. Apple has 4x that in cash alone, and is worth 40x what AMD is. Apple's interest in the CPU market is far less involved than AMD's, so even this isn't a fair comparison. It is a fairly minor investment, considering Apple's size.
Another way of looking at it is that Apple is a company that primarily sells CPUs and other computer components packaged really well. In this context, control over the components is important, especially when the component manufacturers they depend on could one day decide to compete with them. I'd say the security, control, and customization of such an integral part are worth the 1% of their company's value the investment involved.
Is this one of those things that people get excited about just because it's from Apple, but is otherwise totally unremarkable?
No more or less unremarkable than Snapdragon, Tegra 2, or any of the other similar products that are of great interest in this space. Those are all fairly standard ARM cores, too, but nobody's saying anything about their limited scope of customization as being "off the shelf".
It's more likely that this is one of those things that provides a springboard for bitching about Apple out of selective and convenient comparisons, because that Apple logo is a waving red cape in the bullfightingshit arena. Instead of exploring the technical achievements and engineering, it devolves into a bitchfest by people with nothing better to do than call each other fanboys.
There was a data packet that started to have un pure thoughts, so the Apple A4 processor rejected the packet and sent it packing.
Plenty of companies do this. They do it sometimes without being experts in processor design, by having others help them customize off the shelf processors. They're just taking an ARM core, and then adding stuff on the periphery. They're not changing the core itself; not optimizing the pipelines, not adding instructions, etc. It's not even to the level of re-design.
Processors chips are basically at the stage now where you can customize them. This is analogous to me going to a store and building my own PC from off-the-shelf boards and parts; or maybe going to a web site and choosing which components I want in my PC.
This article is of interest in terms of the detective work and reverse engineering though. But it seems uninteresting in terms of it being about Apple.
(After a detour to intel who bought patents and quashed them.) The alpha CPU was quite respected in its day. But since it commercially failed like nearly every other none x86 chip family.
Isn't that sorta like saying a Core i7 is just another x86 chip. It's a standard, general-purpose, consumer-grade processor. I don't know about you but I can't design an ARM chip and you discount the work of engineers who did the design work.
Doesn't the article discount the work of ARM's engineers by pretending that Apple created this thing?
Of course they didn't took "a general purpose processor", they just made some modifications to a design which is already pretty appropriate to have a SoC they want. Lots of companies do that...
One that hath name thou can not otter
But What I would find really interesting is what it would take to make Apple scrap the chip designs they bought and go back to Intel processors.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
I'd be very surprised to see Apple computers based around processors that are "Apple" in anything more than name and, possibly, specific arrangement of cookie-cutter functional units around a licensed ARM or x86 core.
Apple has historically and to the present day, shown considerable distaste for entering low margin markets(with occasional exceptions in the service of making their high margin gear more attractive: the original "airport", for instance, was actually cheaper than the Lucent gear that it was a rebadge of; but it was sold to give the high-margin macs the "wireless" feature comparatively cheaply and easily, for the user). Chips, unless you are the top dog(like Intel, who after their rather embarrassing P4 vs. A64 era, are pretty firmly back on top of the x86 world) or a huge supplier of licensed blocks(like ARM), are a cutthroat business. The poor bastards churning out commodity Flash or DRAM seem to be losing money and/or going out of business all the time.
Apple might well(and, indeed, already have), commission a big stack of semi-custom chips, with their own preferred core and functional groups, and have somebody fab it, and(with an order of that size) whoever is contracted to package it will be happy to stamp whatever Apple wants on the casing. However, actually going into chip design/fabrication in a serious way would be entering a seriously cutthroat market to no obvious advantage.
On the x86 side, Intel has already demonstrated a willingness to give Apple some months of exclusivity and press hype for their newest gear(Xeons in the mac pros, small-package core2s in the macbook air), presumably in exchange for better margins than dell and HP's knife-fight-in-a-telephone-booth offers. As long as Intel is willing to do the hard, capital intensive, work of running cutting edge fabs, and provide their fanciest silicon at modest per-unit cost, with an exclusivity period, what would Apple have to gain?
On the ARM side, the world is crawling with vendors who have their own, slightly different, spins of ARM core + functional units. The barrier to entry to having your own isn't exactly huge; but neither are the margins or differentiation. The fact that Apple also has one, to suit their particular embedded devices, isn't surprising; but it isn't a huge strategic thing. All the assorted ARM licensees of a particular ARM generation are pretty similar.
The components on the die are different then any other chip, including the basic Cortex A8 design its based on. Ergo, it is different then any other chip. Ergo, they redesigned the chip.
Exactly how, no one is entirely sure. They can't actually tell yet exactly what all the components are. Its very similar to a Samsung chip that the company they bought (Intrinsity) previously designed, but in a couple notable places, it is different. But its possible there's other changes in the other modules, even if said modules appear in the same places and are of similar sizes.
Its different. That's all we know, but its known for a fact. Its not like Apple posts the full design of the silicon or anything for analysis :P
There's really absolutely no argument that's supportable for the position that they didn't re-design the chip to specialize it: even if specialize is only "remove a module from the die that are not needed" -- that's all that's required to fulfill the requirements to have been made "specifically for use in its mobile devices". I'm not saying that's all they did, but they did at least that, and so the statement holds.
Its actually not terribly easy to look at a microchip and tell exactly what all is going on in it.
Oh, yeah, I agree--it's not particularly exciting. My post was in response to the AC who apparently didn't read TFA and said the A4 is just a "standard, general-purpose consumer-grade embedded processor." It's not; as I said, it's nothing revolutionary but it has been customized for Apple's purposes.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Look at all the hype the shiny "A4" name has garnered them despite it being essentially made with commonplace cores that are already widely used. The switch to Intel took away the special "uniqueness" factor that Macs had on 68k and PPC. This is just a marketing ploy to convince the fanboys that these new platforms have something extra special that you can't get with any old beigebox phone.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
They probably just took a normal ARM SoC and removed any MPEG2 or DIVX support.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It's unlikely the CPU core was modified much, they probably used some more efficient in comparison to what they had DSPs/etc., or throttling methods of those; so A8 part doesn't really come into consideration (and even if - then Apple has it just in time for A9 SoCs showing up, for example)
Oh, and you overestimate how designing SoC can often look nowadays... (screenshot; yes, even basically point'n'click CPU customisation)
One that hath name thou can not otter
IOW. There is no reason for this to be news. The only reason anyone even noticed or bothered to submit it here is the fact that it is Apple.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Think Programming instead of IC design.
These days design of chips like A4 is more like programming than IC design of the 80s.
- Import the ARM Cortex 8 library, customized with configuration
- import other libraries e.g. memory controller, graphics chip etc
- write code to bind them together
compile... oops.. I mean send to foundry. Get back A4 or your Snapdragon.
ARM processors don't come pre-packaged. You license the core design, then you have to do everything else is needed to turn that into a physical chip. That's what *every SOC manufacturer* who uses an ARM chip does. Thus every ARM-based chip out in the wild is "different from any other chip". And we should get a slashdot story for each one of them.
"Off-the-shelf" means it's a vendor's product, not a custom in-house design. It means Apple ordered it from Samsung as a finished product, though they ordered specific design features to be included (which is common in industries with customers who spend millions of dollars on a single run of parts). It does not mean there is a literal shelf the average Joe can go and find an A4 for purchase.
You could, however, order an S5PC110A01 from Samsung, it's the same chip. The S5PC110A01 is found in other devices, including Samsung's own "Wave" phone. You won't find a web site to buy it from, but if you were to call Samsung you could almost certainly negotiate a price for a single chip, and they'd sell it to you.
That's what off-the-shelf means - it's not a product that is owned by Apple, or exclusive to Apple (though they were apparently influential in its design). It's a Samsung product and other manufacturers can buy the chip directly from Samsung if they want to use it.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Except, Apple's got a microarchitecture license. They haven't really used it much, aince the A4 is a modified Cortex A8, but the other licensees are Marvell (who got it from Intel, who got it from Compaq, who got it from DEC...), and Qualcomm (for the Snapdragon).
Next, Apple acquires Intrinsity, who up to then had been working with Samsung (who used to provide the processors for Apple) to modify the Cortex A8 core to be faster or more power efficient.
Apple's bought a lot of VLSI talent. They have PA Semi, who are well known at making very low power PowerPC chips, and Intrinsity, who are great at modifying existing designs. PA Semi may be working on a brand new ARM-compatible chip, while Intrinsity works on improving the A8/A9/etc, so Apple has a range of options for processors. Intrinsity gets them a processor "now" (since it's modified A8 plus peripherals), while PA Semi works on a future processor.
The A4 isn't interesting at all. The next gen chips, though, are. And Apple is poised to be a gadget provider that makes their own processors. If PA Semi + Intrinsity comes up with a super high speed design or super lower power design, it's all Apple's IP and technology, and Apple doesn't have to share wirh anyone else.
The use of a modified ARM based chip for mobile devices is in itself not interesting either. That it is a relatively fast version, well OK.
What's interesting is that they use it specifically within their company. I would expect that most ARM derivatives are created by chip companies which then sell them to device manufacturers.
Technically it is interesting exactly what they've added and in what configuration. Unfortunately they article is very light on the devices embedded within the SoC. We'll probably have to wait a bit more for that information.
Don't you mean "The next gen chips, though, might be"? Plus - how much of an advantage can they really give, considering the expense of investing in heaviliy custom designs? Especially if Apple seems like to like the recent high margins afforded by using commodity hardware...
One that hath name thou can not otter
You could, however, order an S5PC110A01 from Samsung, it's the same chip.
[Citation Needed]
Considering the guys with the infrared microphotography equipment couldn't say that for certain--in fact, they suggested otherwise--I don't understand how you can make that statement.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Is it so interesting? The other company involved somehow in this news, Samsung, also certainly makes SoCs which suit them and are used specifically within their company; and having 21% of mobile phones, versus 2% of Apple, and also directly manufacturing those chips, they are a bit more notable.
Generally A4 is certainly not much different from comparable SoCs used in mobile devices. But it certainly does have some "bloat" at least in some devices ;p (like that would matter much...but, for fun, compare specs of iPad vs. iPhone vs. iPod Touch)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Doesn't the article discount the work of ARM's engineers by pretending that Apple created this thing?
No.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
From what I know about it, Apple designed the chip to be more powerful and and more energy efficient than a standard A8. Making something to do both isn't an easy task.
More powerful and more energy efficient than a standard A8,
I'm constantly amazed when I see Apple fanbois making up stuff to hype up Apple's products. Just curious, how do you know that's what Apple did? Can you prove that?
Apple took a general purpose processor and re-designed it specifically for use in its mobile devices.
By all appearances, the A8 ARM core was not redesigned by Apple in any respect. This looks more like a cookbook integration of various IP cores, including a standard ARM core.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
So investors are caught up in the hype and RDF as much as the media or anyone else right now...
But yes - maybe now people can drop the myth that Apple are a "little company": "Look how amazing it is that Apple have done so well, managing a whole 5% of the phone market in just 3 years" they cry, as if Apple weren't some billion dollar company that can easily enter any market it wants. Or "Isn't it amazing that Apple can create a device for me to access the Internet" as if this was anything special in 2007 onwards; or "Let's all root for the small guys, against those nasty big companies like Intel and Microsoft"...
If your implication is that the Apple A4 is going to outdo Intel x86 just because of market cap, I don't think so. Intel x86 is well established on the desktop (as well as laptops and netbooks), and isn't going anywhere, especially with the dominance of Windows. And anyhow, the A4 is based on ARM anyway, so it's they who ultimately get the credit for owning the embedded/portable market.
Except this is how ARM work - they don't make the CPUs themselves, they license the architecture designs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#ARM_licensees ). There's no such thing as an "off-the-shelf" CPU from ARM!
Are we going to get stories about every other company that makes an ARM CPU? No, because this is an Apple new site.
You're right, but this still leads us to the same conclusion - since this is how it works for every ARM processor (none of them are "off-the-shelf"), there's still nothing special about the A4, and we don't get news stories about every other ARM processor manufacturer.
I obviously don't need to tell you to take what Apple says with a grain of salt, as you seem to be perfectly well practiced at doing so already. But every time Apple talks about the A4, they talk about how it's been optimized for highly-efficient, low-power-consumption computing.
"Apple engineers designed the A4 chip to be a remarkably powerful yet remarkably power-efficient mobile processor. With it, iPhone 4 can easily perform complex jobs such as multitasking, editing video, and placing FaceTime calls. All while maximizing battery life."
"The A4 chip inside iPad was custom-designed by Apple engineers to be extremely powerful yet extremely power efficient. The performance is unlike anything you’ve ever seen on a touch-based device. Which makes iPad fantastic for everything from productivity apps to games. At the same time, the A4 chip is so power efficient that it helps iPad get up to 10 hours of battery life on a single charge."
From the iPhone 4 and iPad pages at apple.com, respectively. Again, take it at face value, but they've definitely done some custom work and optimization. They're not claiming to have built a new CPU architecture or anything that drastic... this is more along the lines of performance-tuning trimming out unused functionality.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Actually, many are off-the-shelf: at least, after a licensee makes them and sells them as such. Nvidia's Tegra for example, Qualcomm's Snapdragon. Those are off-the-shelf in that they're commodity items that basically any hardware manufacturer can decide to integrate.
ARM itself isn't off-the-shelf ever, no; you're right about that. ARM just sells specs. But licensees can take that and foundation and make chips of their own. Those can be commodity, off-the-shelf sort of items. This one isn't, Apple's keeping it to itself. That's interesting. (Interesting, not surprising)
And we indeed did get a Slashdot story when Nvidia came out with the Tegra and entered the market: its a new chip, its interesting. We've also gotten a Slashdot article about an upcoming Snapdragon release. So yeah, we do get news about this stuff. Why not about the A4?
Apple deciding to make their own CPU instead of going for a commodity one, and the fact that it seems to be unusually low-powered, and is going to end up in millions and millions and millions of devices -- it seems to be a natural nerd-interest to tear it apart and get a closer look. Seems quite appropriate to \.
You're right, but this still leads us to the same conclusion - since this is how it works for every ARM processor (none of them are "off-the-shelf"), there's still nothing special about the A4, and we don't get news stories about every other ARM processor manufacturer.
Like... because all people are different they're actually all the same and there is no need to get stories about what certain people have done?
"News for nerds"? I certainly am interested in details about the A4. Apple is good in certain things (or rather prioritizes certain things) and I would surely like to learn more about the power-management in that chip. Or about DRM-support in hardware.
This PDF has photographs of the S5PC110A01 and A4. It's clear that, aside from the Cortex A8, they don't share much in common. The S5PC110A01 is 9mm^2 bigger, so you can tell that they aren't the same chip just from the size of the die, but the Cortex A8 is not even in the same location on both. They both use the A8, but so does the OMAP3500-series, like the one found in the N900 - it's pretty much the standard core for the current generation of handhelds.
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Much less remarkable than the Snapdragon. In designing the Snapdragon, Qualcomm replaced most of the floating point pipeline, tweaked most of the rest of the code, and got about a 5-10% improvement over the standard A8 design, clock for clock.
Tegra 2 is also more interesting. nVidia didn't do anything with the core design, but they used the A9 core, rather than the A8, which supports SMP (up to four cores per chip), out-of-order execution, and better performance. They also added their own GPU design, while Apple just added one licensed from another third party.
In short, the A4 is a pretty dull chip. The interesting thing about it is that it manages to be about 15-20% smaller than similar off-the-shelf chips because Apple aggressively removed all of the features in a typical ARM SoC that they didn't need. This means that cost saving, rather than performance, was the most likely motive for Apple's design of a custom CPU. A smaller die means higher yields and less money spent per chip. Of course, that's only worthwhile if you are expecting to sell a lot of them, because the custom setup and design costs offset this for small numbers. A million sales might be enough though, so Apple have probably saved money overall by going with the A4 instead of something like the OMAP3530 or i.MX515.
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ARM Cortex-A9
Same as everybody else
Didn't Apple and Intel designed a special chip for the first gen Macbook Air? Wasn't Apple also part of the AIM alliance? which also included IBM and Motorola.
Much less remarkable than the Snapdragon. In designing the Snapdragon, Qualcomm replaced most of the floating point pipeline, tweaked most of the rest of the code, and got about a 5-10% improvement over the standard A8 design, clock for clock.
A new floating point unit and some power efficiency gains is not exactly in a different ballpark.
They also added their own GPU design, while Apple just added one licensed from another third party.
They selected an existing GPU and shrunk it down, which is exactly what Apple did to the overall package.
In short, the A4 is a pretty dull chip. The interesting thing about it is that it manages to be about 15-20% smaller than similar off-the-shelf chips because Apple aggressively removed all of the features in a typical ARM SoC that they didn't need. This means that cost saving,
It means cost savings, power savings, and logic board savings, all of which are significant in product design. A 5% improvement in artificial benchmarking isn't terribly exciting compared to a 15-20% size reduction, nor is nVidia's repurposing of a trimmed-down GPU in a vanilla design any more impressive than Intrinsity scaling down the package for Apple.
The Snapdragon is not so much different from the Cortex A8 that it is any way revolutionary, nor is the A4. Both were specifically optimized for their intended application at non-trivial expense and with non-trivial objectives. That you find one set of optimizations "dull" in comparison because of personal preferences does nothing to detract from the work that went into the product, nor does it excuse the flamewar.
C'mon. This is apple.slashdot.org and they needed to fill some space between now and the Iphone 4 hoopla for next week.
Talk to Samsung maybe?
Samsung are using the A4 in their own phones, so it's likely they played as much part in the design as Apple did.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20007162-64.html
Who knows, maybe they will sell it to you if you order enough.
"From what I know about it..."
Which is not to say you know very much.
Along with that PR came unprecedented performance, so it's not *just* PR...
Except that nothing Apple did, apparently, was anything near as complicated as redesigning a GPU core or a floating point unit. That's the point you seem to be objecting to, and failing.
Also, since Apple controls the whole platform, they can make changes to the hardware in future revs and just watch for and handle those changes in the software, designing both in parallel so you don't get an out-of-step release schedule like we're seeing with Android devices. It's the big benefit of controlling the whole platform.
so apple is darwinian
Except that nothing Apple did, apparently, was anything near as complicated as redesigning a GPU core
On the contrary, die shrinking and block stripping is exactly what Apple and nVidia did.
or a floating point unit.
I haven't seen anything suggesting that Qualcomm radically altered anything.
The point is that all ARM products that differ from reference designs in non-trivial ways, achieved through non-trivial effort and non-trivial expenditure, are all still far more alike than different. Intrinsity's design isn't any more "off the shelf" than TI's OMAP3 or Tegra or Snapdragon. Samsung's Hummingbird was even given quite a bit of attention, and as it turns out, it may be extremely similar to the A4, but no one knocked Samsung. In other words, this has nothing to do with Apple and everything to do with flamewars.
Depends on what you mean by "licensed core". If you look at the history of Apple, you'll see a clear pattern: Apple licenses other people's cores or buys their chips at the end of the design process, but is quite frequently involved in designing those cores to begin with.
Let's review:
Apple has a long history of working with chip vendors and adding significant functionality to their designs. Sure, those bits end up in other companies' products, but there's Apple IP in an awful lot of CPUs out there, including many of the CPUs that have appeared in Apple products over the years....
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On the contrary, die shrinking and block stripping is exactly what Apple and nVidia did.
Apple did not to a die shrink - this is a technical term meaning taking an existing die and producing it at a newer process. Apple simply removed components that they did not need, such as USB and serial controllers. Or, more accurately, they simply didn't add them. Aside from that, the chip is unremarkable.
I haven't seen anything suggesting that Qualcomm radically altered anything.
Which tells me more about you than anything else - specifically that you know absolutely nothing about the ARM marketplace. Please look at some technical details for the Snapdragon - it doesn't even have the same length pipeline as the A8.
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I think it is just because it is Apple. For some reason, the thought of Apple being involved in processor design makes these people jizz in their pants.
It shouldn't, the last time Apple (AIM) made their own processors it was such a big hit that they dropped it and went with Intel.
And ... they use still use Intel above all that, too bad too sad, take your reality distortion field elsewhere.
Next you'll tell me they invented RISC, FPU, L3 shared caching, and multi-cores? IBM paved the way to RISC and also FPU (through coprocessor). L3 caching was an Intel thing^ and multi-core design was AMD. What did Apple do? name one significant aspect to the modern processor Apple had anything to do with?
^ Citation needed
Apple did not to a die shrink - this is a technical term meaning taking an existing die and producing it at a newer process.
Excuse me, I meant package shrinking.
Aside from that, the chip is unremarkable.
That's not what TFA says.
Which tells me more about you than anything else - specifically that you know absolutely nothing about the ARM marketplace. Please look at some technical details for the Snapdragon - it doesn't even have the same length pipeline as the A8.
On the contrary, it shows your dancing around the periphery of the issue. I've not seen any "technical details" claiming the Snapdragon is any sort of revolution, nor is the Snapdragon design under attack for its technical achievements. You insist on defending that which no one is attacking while ignoring the actual point of the argument and making silly personal comments, which says a lot about you.
As ever, the point is that everyone that modifies the design of the basic ARM unit does so at non-trivial expense, with non-trivial effort, and arrives at a non-trivial alteration for their specific needs and goals. No one is claiming the A4 is a revolution. It is, like the OMAP3, like the Tegra, like the Tegra 2, like the Hummingbird, and yes, even like the Snapdragon, a modified design built for a specific purpose, and customized to the necessary extent to serve that purpose. What a given person chooses to find interesting or remarkable is irrelevant and does not support belittling the engineers who did the work (few of whom, by the way, even worked at Apple).
You're drawing an arbitrary line. It's possible to improve a chip design without creating a fundamental new building block that nobody else has ever built.... By your standards, the Centre Pompidou is not architecturally unique because other buildings have air ducts and water pipes.
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Though some of those companies rely to much lesser degree on Chinese OEMs (the way Apple set up themselves like that).
Citation (with details) needed.
such a high percentage of what americans buy is made there.
Most of their workforce elligible for any raises...also not there.
Citation (with details) needed.
For example Nokia owns all of their manufacturing fabs (over a dozen); most of them not in China / half of them in the EU.
http://www.nokia.com/about-nokia/company/production-units
You can check some of the rest as an exercise in using Google, etc.
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So, basically this is pretty similar to the Cyrix Media GX processor that powered Tablet PC's in the 90's except with an ARM core instead of x86 and minus the audio subsystem?
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
Granted but improving something which has already been created is one thing. To say Apple had anything to do with developing IP that now trickles in to the chip making industry paving the way so-to-speak, sorry that's just ... *BZZT* WRONG!
Your words ...
Apple has a long history of working with chip vendors and adding significant functionality to their designs. Sure, those bits end up in other companies' products, but there's Apple IP in an awful lot of CPUs out there, including many of the CPUs that have appeared in Apple products over the years....
If anything Apple helped engineers create something typically easier for them to implement you know like a rich guy getting flown over to Germany to have his BMW custom built.
Now over to ARM, we wont even talk about AIM we'll be like Apple and act like it never happened, with ARM a very sturdy chip with a nice architecture (It's caching is conservatively and brilliantly done) If you were to use ARM's development as a basis or representation of Apple's chip making abilities maybe you get confused thinking a lot of what it brings to the table is new. ARM has the habit of changing the name of various things within the processor but when you look at it closer still follows the same basic principles already set down. The terminology might differ though its still pretty much the same thing it just holds a bit more a of conservative approach (and that might have something to do with it being designed for portable devices).
When it comes to CPU design it's not so much about innovation anymore. The concepts which have already been put forward by Intel, AMD^ and IBM over the years suffice now its all about the cost of chip and whether its cost effective to add various components. Simply put, If cost wasn't a factor we'd be running around with lots more cache memory and do away with slow ass RAM therefore reducing BUS (ahh BSB should of mentioned this before, another IBM innovation) speed bottlenecks and creating computers that would blaze in comparison too what we have now.
All these things HT, FPU, UDMA (not really processor but holds argument here) its all about getting away from the CPU or distributing the responsibilities of the CPU because of this cost factor involved.
^ Yeah they're worth a mention and they did a shitload more than Apple ever did / could for pioneering chip design.
So? They added something else to their device and ended up with a bit bigger die and components are in slightly different places. That means very little, since all of the die layouts are done automatically these days by CAD software. It still can be the same device, just with additional components.
Using page loads as a metric is really giving you a better view at Safari vs Chrome than CPU comparisons, and we all know that Chrome is faster.
You can't really use things like standby time either because Android multitasks, and we all know that kills battery life.
However, looking at the iPad on the A4 compared to previous devices that used ARM chips by Samsung and also ran the same OS, the iPad does much, much better. I bought an iPad a few weeks after it came out for a trip to Asia that I am just finishing up, and it's markedly more resourceful than other Apple portables I've used. Standby time is great, I left it unplugged and mostly unused for a week and it only went down 10%. It plays movies for like 9 hours without having to recharge. Games aren't as good as movies, but you still get like 7 or 8 hours of gaming out of it.
The A4 is definitely much better than previous chips that Apple has used, PR switch enabled or not.
You forgot to mention the whole 6-8% of the browser market Apple owns. You know vs the 60% MSIE and the 20% Firefox owns.
Apple basically fights over the last 20% with Google Chrome. Yep, their attempts at killing flash is going to work isn't it?
BINGO!!!
Some teardown analyses suggest that the A4 is nothing more nor less than a rebranded Samsung Hummingbird, which, though not a bad chip, breaks no new ground. Hopefully, something more innovative will come of it before too long. It appears that the NVidia Tegra 2 is a much more advanced SoC.
One has to wonder about the timing of an iPad replacement as the iPhone 4 has already made it clear that the iPad (1) is yesterday's news in far too many ways. Unless Apple has an iPad (2) out for Christmas I should think the competition will have something out that will be more attractive to many consumers.
One would hope they could leave it mostly blank for a few days, to maintain some balance...
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