“Every year, the patent analysis and competitive intelligence company Chipworks tears down the applications processors found in Apple’s latest iPhones and iPads,” Ashram Eassa writes for The Motley Fool. “As you might recall, Chipworks confirmed that the A9 processor inside of the iPhone 6s/6s was, indeed, manufactured by both TSMC and Samsung, a fact that came as a surprise to many.”
“After contacting the folks at Chipworks, I was able to get some interesting information about the A9X chip that powers the recently launched iPad Pro,” Eassa writes. “I believe that the A9X is easily the most advanced mobile system-on-a-chip available today. It has best-in-class CPU/graphics performance and it is an extremely large chip built on a bleeding-edge foundry manufacturing process.
Eassa writes, “It is little wonder that the chip performs as well as it does in the various performance tests available online, and I believe that the engineering teams at Apple should be quite proud of themselves for building and deploying a chip like the A9X in 2015.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s A9X is the mobile beast SoC.
SEE ALSO:
Analyst: Apple’s iPad Pro and its powerful A9X CPU pose threat to Intel – November 12, 2015
Apple’s A9X-powered iPad Pro offers Mac-like speed – November 11, 2015
Apple’s new iPad Pro is faster and more affordable than beleaguered Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4 – November 12, 2015
Whether they’re correct or not there are articles claiming the A9X chip is already inferior to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 so Apple’s processor definitely isn’t an instant lock as far as Wall Street is concerned. Obviously, any processor must be a good fit for specific hardware integration. It’s more than just matching numbers.
Apple certainly has the advantage of deep integration using its own processors, hardware and OS. However, it’s still a year to year race as new processors are made available. Apple will never be given the benefit of the doubt of having hardware superiority so it will constantly have to prove itself.
I don’t think Apple can take the risk of taking big leaps using unproven technology, so each processor advance is going to be in relatively small increments. It will pay off but Apple will be stuck with that ‘lack of innovation’ label.
“Apple will be stuck with that ‘lack of innovation’ label.”
Don’t think so.
Apple looks to deliver “whole device” performance and as near as I can tell, they are doing a very good job versus the Droids.
It is certainly good enough to where I’ve never heard a complaint about iPhone performance.