During ARM’s Q3 financial results announced today, 9to5Mac noticed this little gem:
including a license for ARM’s 2GHz implementation of a dual core Cortex-A9 processor.
We’ve heard about the Cortex A9 before. Purportedly, is 5x faster than an intel Atom, yet uses the same amount of power in a 60% smaller package.
Could this be for next year’s iPhone? For a mythical (maybe even second generation) iTablet? We don’t know, but 9to5mac speculates:
Apple is rumored to be an ARM licensee and that that they’ve reportedly split the PA Semi group up into two parts. One working on Smartphone chips the other working on tablet processors. It is now generally accepted that the Apple tablet will run a ARM Cortex processor. It will likely want a bit more horsepower than the ARM Cortex A8-class Samsung chip inside the iPhone 3GS.
Whether or not it’s Apple, the PA Semi group is working on something, even if it won’t be until next year that we get to see it. Anyone else care to speculate?
Apple Insider reports that Samsung has a 45 nanometer, 1GHz ARM processor, code-named “Hummingbird” on the horizon.
It uses the same Cortex A8 architecture as the current iPhone 3GS (which runs at a clocked-down 600MHz) but due to the smaller size, is said to not consumer any more power or generate any more heat than the current 833MHz generation.
Apple has made huge investments and agreed to large scale licenses of the ARM chip, even as they’re moving ahead with their own, in-Apple chipset initiatives.
So, even if Samsung ships this baby in time there’s still no telling if Apple will use it for a forth generation iPhone, likely to cycle around June 2010.
This would be the result of Apple purchasing fabless chip design firm Palo Alto Semiconductor (PA Semi) and hiring Papermaster from IBM and graphics processor (GPU) gurusx2 from AMD/ATI (though whether or not it includes the ARM and PowerVR licenses for cores found in the iPhone and iPod touch, or beefier Intel chips found in the Mac line is uncertain).
TUAW speculates that, given recent news of problems between Apple and Nvidia, who currently makes the Mac integrated chipsets, perhaps Apple will push the custom work into that line as well.
Either way, we’ve seen the huge benefit shared software technology has provided for the iPhone and Mac (Spotlight, QuickTime X to name but two), Apple going in-house with the chipsets could be just as beneficial…
MacRumors is reporting that Apple’s new iPhone 3GS, while indeed using Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR graphics core, may just have a little more under the hood than previously thought:
iPhone developers, however, have discovered that the iPhone 3GS has extension files named “IMGSGX535GLDriver” suggesting that the new iPhone uses the more powerful graphics processor intended for “high end” mobile devices. This may not be entirely conclusive evidence by itself but it is consistent with a report from a Anandtech commenter who claims to have heard directly from Apple engineers at WWDC that the iPhone 3GS does indeed use the SGX 535.
Zoom. Zoom.
In a related story, Apple has apparently raised their stakes in Imagination Technologies to 9.5% on the heels of Intel’s 16%.
CNET has an interesting post up detailing what we can expect in the next generation ARM processor. Just yesterday we took a look at the iPhone 3G’s ARM 11 vs. the new iPhone 3G S’ Cortex ARM8 and the difference was impressive — most impressive. Well, next year is promising a dual-core ARM Cortex A9…!
Icebike sent this in, wondering out loud: “Is it too soon to start speculating on 2010?” And the simple answer is “no, no it’s not!” It’s longstanding practice here at TiPb to wait a polite 1.372 seconds after a new iPhone model is introduced, and then begin with “So, next year–”
That spirit in mind, TiPb can’t help but wonder what this, combined with multi-core PowerVR GPU’s, wrapped up into custom system-on-chips by Papermaster, the PA Semi team, and all those new GPUgurus toiling away in Steve’s basement, means for a 2010 iPhone? (No, I won’t call it an iPhone HD — yet!)
At the very least, I think DC comics is going to have to invent us a faster Flash!
Anandtech gives their usual in-depth look at the processors inside Apple’s new iPhone 3G S. First the CPU, the new ARM Cortex A8 and the short of it is — if the iPhone 2G and 3G were old 486 PCs, the iPhone 3G S would be a Pentium:
As for the GPU, the PowerVR SGX — even if it’s clocked down to half-speed, it’s rendering geometry 3.5x faster with a fill rate 25% higher as well:
Their take away? Well, they say the iPhone 3G S packs a similar hardware punch to the new Palm Pre, but while webOS uses some of that power for 3rd party multitasking, Apple’s “highly optimized software stack” will bring the speed.
And that only scratches the surface. For the gritty details, check out the full article.
Although unannounced, the iPhone 3GS uses (again) a Samsung SoC but this time instead of the ARM11 + MBX-Lite combo it’s got a Cortex A8 and PowerVR SGX; just like the [Palm] Pre.
So add that to the fast PowerVR SGX graphics core, and — to quote Steve Jobs — it’s a screamer!
Update: Apple Insider has a great run down of the technology inside the chipsets.
Sources have now reported that Apple has detailed that Imagination’s PowerVR SGX is indeed the graphics processor used in the iPhone 3G S, and that it is “designed for OpenGL ES 2.0.” The new 2.0 specification of OpenGL for Embedded Systems eliminates most of the fixed-function rendering pipeline for a programmable approach to 3D rendering using shader programs.
So while we’re not yet getting that PA Semi + multicore ARM/PowerVT + OpenCL + Papermaker + ATI gurus system on a chip we’ve been fantasizing about this year… we’re still getting a clear focus on speed from Apple. And that’s a Good Thing.
Oh, and yeah, that’s totally the Kingdom Come Flash trouncing his golden age and silver age counterparts in the graphic above. /geek.
Join Dieter, Chad, and Rene for iPhone 3.0Beta 4, Apple building chipset-zilla? Verizon rumorfest, announcing TiPb’s BirthdayBash! and your questions. Listen in!
Something seriously smoking be going on round Apple way if the latest story from The Inquirer (via MacRumors) is to be believed:
We’ve just heard from sources deep inside 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, California that [Raja Koduri, AMD/ATI Chief Technology Officer, Graphics Product Group] is heading there.
Steve Jobs has said Apple is working on their own systems-on-chip for future iPhones and iPod touches. Looks like that work has got some serious hardware, and talent behind it.
Our only question is, what’s going to melt the universe first, the Hadron Collider, or whatever Apple’s got cooking up in their basement?
