A5 Chip in Tweaked Apple television still Manufactured through Samsung at 32nm | Apple Day - Apple, iPod, iPad, iPhone, iTouch, iMac, iBook

earlier this week, we unfolded the newly tweaked Apple tv to find a remarkably small A5 chip inside of reasonably than an A5X as had been suspected from the instrument’s software posted via Apple over a month in the past.

considering that that point, we’ve got been talking with chip consultants at Chipworks and Silicon-IP concerning the possibilities and have tested that, in contrast to in the previous Apple tv, this even smaller A5 does not use a stacked chip design involving the DRAM. We have been unable to identify the chip to the left of the A5 in our unit because of illegible markings, but Chipworks has cracked open any other unit and revealed Elpida DRAM in that place.

a5 2012 2013 comparison size comparability of 2012 A5 die with 2013 die
regardless of endured rumors that Apple has been working very laborious to transition far from Samsung for manufacturing of A-sequence chips, it appears that Apple has no longer yet been able to make that step on a mass production basis, as this new smaller A5 remains to be being fabbed by way of Samsung.

Chipworks has tested the die dimension of this new A5 at 6.1 mm x 6.2 mm, making it simply over half of the scale of the eight.19 mm by way of 8.sixty eight mm die within the previous model and no more than a 3rd the dimensions of the original A5 offered in the iPad 2 two years in the past.

chipworks a5 7498 die mark regardless of affirmation that this new A5 chip is being manufactured by Samsung, Chipworks is nonetheless working to confirm the method node for the chip.

is this new A5 a pipe-cleaner for TSMC in a decrease extent (and possibility) device? is this new A5 a cheaper price variant that we will be able to see in new lower finish phones from Apple? Is it a cut back from Samsung’s 32-nm course of to their 28-nm? All have been speculated upon, and this time round we will deny the primary rumor by confirming that the chip has die markings consistent with the continuing use of Samsung as the foundry associate. With recognize to the 2d rumor, we will present our $.02 that we do are expecting to peer this chip in future Apple units (such as a possible cellphone or iPod) because that habits could be in line with what they’ve finished previously. As for the die cut back, the math tells us that the scale reduction is more than a simple decrease – some performance has changed too. We’ll have to look forward to the go-part to look whether it is fabbed on the smaller course of.

Chipworks’ Jim Morrison notes that it’s unclear exactly what Apple’s larger plans are for this chip, provided that the Apple television just isn’t a excessive-sufficient quantity product to justify creation of the new chip, so it is imaginable that Apple intends to use this A5 as a smaller, more cost-effective, and more power efficient chip for its rumored decrease-value iPhone or in all probability the next-era of iPod contact. Apple made a equivalent move last yr with the 32-nanometer A5, launching it within the Apple tv and a tweaked iPad 2 sooner than rolling it out on a larger scale in the iPad mini and iPod contact later in the 12 months.

Morrison also notes that, regardless of this new A5 being manufactured by Samsung, it could still be a part of a pipe cleaner run to prepare for a transfer to TSMC, serving as a reference and fallback option for Apple as TSMC builds its own versions of it.

also doubtful is why Apple is just not using a stacked DRAM design for this newest A5, despite the fact that Silicon-IP’s Kurt Wolf means that the company may simply nonetheless be lining up the process for building it with a bundle-on-package design. With the Apple television having abundant board house for the separate applications, Apple had little wish to stay up for a extra compact stacked design.

update 11:22 AM: Chipworks has now validated that the new A5 chip still uses the identical 32-nanometer course of seen on the earlier era, that means that this virtually 50% smaller chip is truly a new tool and no longer merely a reduce of the earlier design. Chipworks can have extra knowledge once it is able to acquire polysilicon die photos to view the structure of the chip.

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