“In a recent research note from Cowen’s Timothy Arcuri (via Barron’s), the analyst says Apple is ‘brewing evidence of three cores for [the Apple] A10’ processor that will power next year’s iPhone 7,” Ashraf Eassa writes for The Motley Fool. “He notes that such a move, which would mean an increased die size, would lead to increased demand for wafers and ultimately for semiconductor equipment vendors next year.”
“Although I concur with Arcuri that the A10 will almost certainly see die-size growth relative to this year’s A9 (and the A10X may see growth relative to the A9X), I don’t think Apple will add an additional CPU core,” Eassa writes. “Many, if not most, mobile applications don’t really know what to do with more than one or maybe two CPU cores, but every application can benefit from a core that can process a single application thread at a faster clip.”
“What’s interesting is that even though last year’s A8X chip found inside the iPad Air 2 employed a triple-core CPU design, the A9X chip found inside of the iPad Pro this year goes back to a dual-core design. Each core in the A9X is much faster than the cores found in the A8X, so much so that the A9X actually delivers better multicore performance than the A8X,” Eassa writes. “In light of the fact that Apple chose to use two higher-speed versions of the cores found in the A9 for the A9X — which goes into a very large tablet that can handle much more heat from the chip than the thin and small iPhones can — why would Apple suddenly add a third core to the iPhone 7-bound A10?”
Much more in the full article here.
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Analyst: Apple’s iPad Pro and its powerful A9X CPU pose threat to Intel – November 12, 2015
Should Intel and its investors fear Apple’s high-performance A9X chip? – November 5, 2015