Apple says the processor in the iPhone 5 is twice as fast as the processor in the iPhone 4S and offers up to twice the graphics performance. Yet the iPhone 5 is also expected to offer better battery life than its predecessor.

The secret is in the new Apple A6 processor. But Apple hasn’t really said much about how the chip works.

Apple iPhone 5

The folks at AnandTech did some detective work by examining the markings on the chip, checking with sources, and applying some expert knowledge about mobile processors.

Here’s the verdict: Apple didn’t simply license an ARM Cortex-A9 or ARM Cortex-A15 design and modify it to fit its needs. The company designed its own chip based on ARMv7 technology.

The Apple A6 processor is manufactured by Samsung and features 1GB of Elpida DDR2 1066 MHz memory. While that offers more memory bandwidth than the company’s earlier chips, it’s not entirely clear how the Apple A6 compares with Cortex-A9 or Cortex-A15 chips… but AnandTech suggests that Apple probably steered clear of the former in order to boost performance, and the latter in order to keep power consumption low.

We’ll probably know more about the real-world performance of the chips once people start to get their hands on the phone on September 21st.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

One reply on “Apple A6 processor is a custom ARM chip with faster memory”

  1. Allowing the most coy tech company out there to play even more mysterious…

Comments are closed.