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Apple and Samsung Already Working On A9 Processor

Posted by samzenpus on from the build-it-better dept.

itwbennett writes According to a report in Korean IT Times, Samsung Electronics has begun production of the A9 processor, the next generation ARM-based CPU for iPhone and iPad. Korea IT Times says Samsung has production lines capable of FinFET process production (a cutting-edge design for semiconductors that many other manufacturers, including AMD, IBM and TSMC, are adopting) in Austin, Texas and Giheung, Korea, but production is only taking place in Austin. Samsung invested $3.9 billion in that plant specifically to make chips for Apple. So now Apple can say its CPU is "Made in America."

2 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. I think the relevant points got left out... by tlambert · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think the relevant points got left out... the summary missed the most interesting parts:

    1G L2 - all of graphics memory now fits in the L2 cache

    14nm design - someone needs to update Wikipedia; they can probably clock it faster than the op speed listed there

    Quad core - this thing may be in the next MacBook Air

    Memory bus - Apple's memory bus is still faster than everyone else's by a mile; pays to have the Alpha->NetScaler->PA Semi guys on the payroll

    This things is probably going to beat the pants off every other ARM chip in a while. Oh yeah, forgot: they're already sampling.

  2. List of third-party ARM cores by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    List of third-party implementations of ARM architecture shows Qualcomm Snapdragon (ARMv7), Apple A series (ARMv8), Applied Micro X-Gene (ARMv8), NVIDIA Denver (ARMv8), and Cavium ThunderX (ARMv8). Everything else is ARM's own Cortex reference design.