The A4 Chip Of The iPad Screams
Apple left no room for specialized microprocessor companies to make their new chip for the iPad – they wanted to make sure that by creating their own they could ensure that it works spectacularly with their software. As well of course by keeping it in-house it helps to maintain the secrecy that Apple so desperately crave. Last week at the unveiling of the iPad, Steve Jobs described the new A4 chip as “the most advanced chip Apple have ever used” and that it was crucial to the IPA’s speed, reliability and 10-hour battery life.
Multi-Tasking Chip
“We have an incredible group that does custom silicon at Apple, the iPad A4 chip is the most advanced chip we’ve ever done, it’s got a processor, the graphics, the I/O, the memory controller, everything in this one chip, and it screams” Steve Jobs was quoted as saying. The new A4 chip is the first silicon to run ARM’s Cortex-A9 processor excluding Nvidia’s Tegra 2 from what we believe so far, at least – Apple’s specs are still a closely guarded secret.
Coming Soon Fourth Generation iPhone
The rumor mill is gathering even more momentum now with the advent of the 2010 iPhone due early summer. It seems that either the A4 chip from the iPad or a variant will be used in the new iPhone. Apple last updated the iPhone hardware summer 2009 with the iPhone 3GS. Rumor-mill currently predicts all sorts of things for the fourth generation iPhone including, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash as well as multi-tasking capabilities.
The current iPhone 3 GS and third generation iPod Touch are built around a Samsung designed system on a chip that combines a 600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 CPU core and a 200 MHz PowerVR SGX535 GPU core.
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Author: Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter is the Editorial Director of iPhone.Macreate.com as well as iPad.MacCreate.com, both are part of the Mac Create Network. A Professional Photographer and Associate of the British Industry of Professional Photographers, BIPP, as well as a Professional Journalist, specializing in Technology. A contributor to National and International publications, including The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Professional Photographer, NikonPro, Graphix, Digital Arts, Readers Digest, Popular Photography & Imaging and Which? consumer magazine.
