Chipworks’ shows the Samsung fabricated Apple A4 has more processing power than previous generation Apple-branded processors
Ottawa, Ontario, April 16, 2010 – Chipworks (www.chipworks.com), the world’s leader in reverse engineering and patent infringement analysis for semiconductors and microelectronic systems, announced details today on the Apple A4 chip taken from the Apple iPad.
The A4 represents a first for Apple in reportedly designing their own processor, which Chipworks confirms is manufactured by Samsung in their 45-nm process.
45-nm processing has several advantages:
• Lower power because the transistors are smaller
• More processing capability per mm2
• More die/wafer, so ultimately cheaper die
“The A4 chip is 7.3 x 7.3 mm, giving a die area of 53.3 mm2, which is almost 23% bigger than the iPod 3G processor,” said Dick James, Senior Technology Analyst for Chipworks. “There is clearly more processing power in the A4. Some of this is likely taken up by the 64-bit memory path that the A4 uses to speed up the response time of the system, but until we get a detailed floor plan we will not be able to say for sure what else is in there.”
The iPad Teardown with Device Identification, the details about the A4 chip, and the ability to obtain full die photos, can be found at
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