Inside the iPad: Apple’s A4 processor

“Since the original unveiling of the iPad, the company has outlined next to nothing about the actual specifications of the A4 SoC other than its 1GHz clock speed,” Prince McLean reports for AppleInsider. “‘We have a chip called A4,’ Steve Jobs said on stage at the iPad event, ‘which is our most advanced chip we’ve ever done that powers the iPad. It’s got the processor, the graphics, the I/O, the memory controller — everything in this one chip, and it screams.'”

“All that was publicly known about the A4 was built upon reports like those published on AppleInsider’s, which highlighted a network of evidence documenting the company’s efforts to design its own custom processors based on the ARM architecture and incorporating graphics and video cores from Imagination,” McLean reports.

“That same year, Apple had acquired PA Semi, a fabless chip design firm which had been working on advanced, specialized PowerPC processors,” McLean reports. “Immediately afterward, Jobs told The New York Times, ‘PA Semi is going to do SoCs for iPhones and iPods.'”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James W.” for the heads up.]