A Closer Look at Apple's A7 Chip from the iPhone 5s

[throys]

I can see why my new iPhone 5S feels so damn fast. Everything is just responsive. Thumbs up for apple. I was one of them also wanted a bigger screen
but if apple can bring this on the table indefinitely can hold out next year for the 4.5-4.8 iPhone 6. Thunbs# up#

 

[WilliamG]

I can only agree with others here praising Apple's "A series".
This has been one big, successful project that just seems to keep on giving.

I bought my iPhone 5 and thought it had more processing power than I would need for at least the year to come, and I still think it has more than it "needs" to. And then they release the 5s which is 2x as fast... I'm almost like "Wait you don't need to push ahead this fast?"

It's as if they're making CPU's faster than I think they even need to, just because this project is so fruitful, even in pushing down costs. Just because they can.

The iPhone 5 was the first phone I've owned that truly felt fast enough. I've owned every iPhone, HTC One etc, and the iPhone 5 is super fast. The iPhone 5s is even faster, but with the current iOS design we're definitely reaching the point where I'd prefer more battery life over more speed.

 

[MartinAppleGuy]

People talk about Apple's lack of innovation, and yet Apple's A7 is one of the most innovative pieces of hardware available on a phone today. Amazing to think Apple designed this thing. Designing your own chip hardware means you're not at the mercy of another company's pipeline.

This is the start of something great.

Totally agree. I was amazed at how a dual
Core could put of a fight with quad core/octa core devices. I know why it does (made for the OS) and I feel that this is the kind of upgrade the 5S deserves. Can't wait to see more games optimised for the A7 🙂

 

[jas88]

And this person has no clue what static ram is.

I know perfectly well what SRAM is, TYVM (having studied details like that in the same place as the guys behind this chip architecture...) but perhaps you need to learn it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_RAM

As several other posts have also pointed out, it is not non-volatile memory (there's such as thing as a "non-volatile SRAM" module, but there's no reason to think this could be one), making it almost completely useless for fingerprint storage, but very useful - and just big enough - for the purpose I postulated.

There are other reasons for CPUs normally containing SRAM not DRAM to do with fabrication details, though IBM have been putting DRAM on their CPUs for a few years now. It's a bit slower than SRAM, but you can fit a lot more in the same area of chip, so made sense for L3 cache on their Power chips apparently.

 

[Shearwater]

...and it comes in gold.....😀

 

[Tech198]

So, that's why the iPhone 5s is soo expensive,,, its uses more static ram, which itself is expensive in quantities.

 

[Mike MA]

That's really close 😀

 

[alphaod]

Hold on a sec. Why is it that all over the net, people post that its really a Samsung chip that Apple just branded and added some custom additions? I don't get those guys. It's clear that Apple Designed the Chip and Samsung Chip Fab division manufactured it according to Apple Spec. Or am I making an incorrect statement here?

Because most people read a news article mentioned Samsung fabs, and then they stop reading and repost half the news. This misinformation will then spread.

 

[TheCoffeeBoy]

People talk about Apple's lack of innovation, and yet Apple's A7 is one of the most innovative pieces of hardware available on a phone today. Amazing to think Apple designed this thing. Designing your own chip hardware means you're not at the mercy of another company's pipeline.

This is the start of something great.

The A7 is simply a So though right?

None of the parts inside it were "designed" by Apple, they just plugged together things designed by other companies. It's an ARM CPU with an Imagination Tech GPU, nothing really special, and the iPhone has been using that combo since it's inception, they're just newer variants of the ARM Cortex CPU and IM GPU designs (none of which Apple had a hand in designing). Lots of companies do this for their devices, it's not really anything special. The only special thing Apple do is turn our slightly more advanced lego kits slightly ahead of the competition because their production volume means the overheads for retooling are negligible.

 

[NoNothing]

Samsung are innovative, just as innovative as apple. What they lack is refinement. They'll make a phone, throw in everything including the kitchen sink and see what sticks. It may not necessarily even work well, and some may even consider it beta-grade.

Apple on the other hand see what's available and try and massage it seamlessly and meaningfully into their product. Not everything works but usually the experience is a pleasant one, even if they're rehashing what's out there, it's done in a way that's useful and meaningful to people buying their product.

To me, that is just throwing in features. It is not "innovative". Innovative is the process of taking features and refining them to perform functions that work amazingly well in such a way people did not know they even needed them.

 

[subsonix]

The A7 is simply a So though right?

None of the parts inside it were "designed" by Apple, they just plugged together things designed by other companies. It's an ARM CPU with an Imagination Tech GPU, nothing really specia

That's not correct, ARM have licenses for both a CPU core (the Cortex*), and the ISA. The latter is what Apple has done, using the ARM instruction set and designing their own CPU core, and of course the SoC.

 

[NoNothing]

It'd be even more amazing if they had not, after spending $278 million to buy an ARM design company, and hiring away Samsung's top and very experienced ARM designer.

It would be even more impressive for Samsung if Samsung had not hired Jim away from AMD where he learned his craft for 16 years. Dude, you give Samsung way way too much credit.

----------

The way Apple treats Samsung they're lucky to even get good chips like this.

Proving once again that Apple needs Samsung in ways they are afraid to admit. It would be refreshing if Apple would act in a dignified manor.

Without Apple, Samsung would still think a smartphone needs a physical keyboard and a stylus to operate.

 

[lkrupp]

Hold on a sec. Why is it that all over the net, people post that its really a Samsung chip that Apple just branded and added some custom additions? I don't get those guys. It's clear that Apple Designed the Chip and Samsung Chip Fab division manufactured it according to Apple Spec. Or am I making an incorrect statement here?

No, slappy, you are correct. It's just the time honored tradition of spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) pioneered by Microsoft. You can't convince these people, mainly because they already know they are wrong. Even if Apple got into the fabrication business, built their own plant in Cupertino, and went completely in house, these types would claim the fab plant was built and operated by Samsung. It's just who they are.

 

[Piggie]

If Apple can do this.

Why don't they make their own fast CPU's and GPU's for Macs?

I'd happily buy a Mac if it was faster than a PC.
I have not bought a Mac in decades simply as Apple always have and still go fit lower spec graphics cards in their computers and I'm going way way WAY back.

It's the reason I never owned a nice Mac, and they are still doing it today. Just fitting "good enough" cards 🙁

 

[kdarling]

It would be even more impressive for Samsung if Samsung had not hired Jim away from AMD where he learned his craft for 16 years. Dude, you give Samsung way way too much credit.

On the contrary, one comment that I constantly make, is that it's the individual engineers who should get the most credit, not the companies they happen to work for at the time.

Without Apple, Samsung would still think a smartphone needs a physical keyboard and a stylus to operate.

Now who's giving too much credit to a company? 🙂

Naturally, a company based in a country with character based writing system is going to want to support a stylus.

Even so, Samsung had an all-touch phone on sale the summer before Apple.



And had others in their design labs:



The main thing that Apple did, was to push all the other makers out of their legacy doldrums and slow pushout of R&D.

Apple could jump ahead, because they had no legacy devices to support. Now Apple does have similar legacy issues, and it shows in their lack of screen choice, and in their relatively minor UI changes. This is why they concentrate on internals. Which is okay.

 

[Gudi]

some folks dont understand the distinction between a chip fab and a chip designer.

A chip fab is much like a printing agency. Its all about price, volume and error rate. The fab does not need to know anything about chip design, they are just making copies from a pdf-file someone else gave them. In Intels Tick-Tock scheme every Tock is a new chip design on the same manufacturing process, while every Tick is a new smaller nanometer manufacturing process of the same basic chip design from last year.

The A7 (28nm) compared to the A6 (32nm) is both a Tick and a Tock in one step, a new chip design with even a completely new 64-bit instruction set and also a new 28 nanometer manufacturing process packing over 1 billion transistors on 102 mm². So in this case the fame goes to both the chip designer (ARM) and the chip manufacturer (Samsung Semiconductor).

Apples accomplishment as always is the integration of everything with a new version of Xcode to allow for an easy transition for users and developers alike. The integration of technologies creates their usefulness and therefore the value of the package as a whole. 64-bit Cortex A53 und A57 for Android smartphones are at least a year away. When they arrive almost the whole iOS app ecosystem will already be compiled for 64-bit. Actually making use of 64-bit.

 

[Gudi]

Now who's giving too much credit to a company? 🙂

You are.

Even so, Samsung had an all-touch phone on sale the summer before Apple.

You don't have a touch smartphone, if you don't have an touch-app development environment (Cocoa Touch for Xcode) and an reliable software delivery method (the AppStore). No one ever cared about all-touch dumbphones.

 

[MWPULSE]

I think there is designed, and then their is DESIGNED.

And, as far as I know, no one here knows, they just spout either pro or anti Apple talk.

I an unsure if Apple REALLY deep deep down design the real guts of the chip

Say I want to build a car.
I could spec some nice wheels from USA Wheels inc, perhaps asking for them to cut a fancy shape in the alloy

Buy and Engine in, with my own gearing choices and CC

Spec the leather grade, the instruments from the instument makers
etc etc etc....

and totally legit I could sell it as my own custom, own designed car.

but really it's not MY own fabrication of car. I am reliant on others tech that build the guts on the dashboard instruments, the skills of the wheel makers who know how wheels need to be make, the engine makers who know how to make the engine based upon my customisation requests.

I do wonder if this is more what Apple do with their chip

Do they really have the people and the time to honestly design the chip from the ground up totally from nothing, from scratch, how it all works, the CPU and GPU cores, the memory, everythings from zero ground up.

Or are they more tweeking, speccing and requesting customisations from those who are doing it from ground up,

I think many here think they do it from nothing, but I am guessing this is not in reality the case

You haven't read the article, or other articles and information about this then I take it?

Apple have licensed from ARM the ability to use their designs. (the company who are arguably the biggest, best and longest standing SOC company on the planet-they were making SoC systems for the newton pad and others from what I remember)

Apple have then customed that design with some of their own ingenuity-the RAM (secure storage module) for the TouchID, and the camera image processing (burst mode, on the fly panorama contrast/white balance adjust)

The analogy that is the similar would be like jaguar, using a Rover v8 engine. And then adding a turbo, and an extra fuel injection inlets or sommat of the sort. The exhaust system is designed by someone else, the shell designed by someone else again. And is assembled by another company in china somewhere.

Samsung does similar things, but they are seemingly not getting it quite right.

also worth noting is that Apple had (still have??) a share in ARM.

I would imagine given the acquisitions made by apple recently they have plenty of people leadin the designing/prototyping of the new chips, hardware of the iPhone. I can envisage a world where there are drafts for 2 or 3 phones ahead. Meanwhile there's a drawing board being added to for features to the iPads as well. In some hidden corner there is probably some shell for sommat a bit further down the line, even more futuristic.

 

[subsonix]

Apple have licensed from ARM the ability to use their designs.

That's exactly what they have not done. Apart from the Cortex (ARMs design) others, like Qualcom and Apple design their own CPU cores, and license only the instruction set architecture.

 

[kdarling]

You don't have a touch smartphone, if you don't have an touch-app development environment (Cocoa Touch for Xcode) and an reliable software delivery method (the AppStore). No one ever cared about all-touch dumbphones.

Which is the argument used to say that the iPhone was just a feature phone for its first year.

 

[Dronac]

If Apple can do this.

Why don't they make their own fast CPU's and GPU's for Macs?

I'd happily buy a Mac if it was faster than a PC.
I have not bought a Mac in decades simply as Apple always have and still go fit lower spec graphics cards in their computers and I'm going way way WAY back.

It's the reason I never owned a nice Mac, and they are still doing it today. Just fitting "good enough" cards 🙁

Right now every consumer desktop/laptop uses Intel x64 CPU architecture. AMD licenses it from Intel. If Apple wanted to roll their own Mac CPU, they would have two options, license x64 from Intel, or lose ALL backwards compatibility and the ability to use any OS aside from OS X on a Mac. It would also require a significant rewrite of OS X itself. The original transition from PPC to Intel chips almost didn’t happen.

 

[Gudi]

Which is the argument used to say that the iPhone was just a feature phone for its first year.

A feature phone that doubles as a „widescreen iPod with touch controls“ and a „breakthrough internet communicator“. The first iPhone laid the groundwork and came with all first party apps created with the Cocoa Touch APIs. Samsung never created a smart-capable mobile OS. Google did it with Android after seeing the iPhone. Nothing to give them credit for.

 

[ValSalva]

The iPhone 5 was the first phone I've owned that truly felt fast enough. I've owned every iPhone, HTC One etc, and the iPhone 5 is super fast. The iPhone 5s is even faster, but with the current iOS design we're definitely reaching the point where I'd prefer more battery life over more speed.

I haven't owned all the phones you have but agree that my iPhone 5 is the best iPhone I've ever used. I have friends whose 5s's batteries drain before their eyes.

Now that iOS 7 is out and future OS's won't be such a major leap, battery life will be more of a priority in hardware design.

 

[kdarling]

A feature phone that doubles as a „widescreen iPod with touch controls“ and a „breakthrough internet communicator“. The first iPhone laid the groundwork and came with all first party apps created with the Cocoa Touch APIs. Samsung never created a smart-capable mobile OS. Google did it with Android after seeing the iPhone. Nothing to give them credit for.

Smart-capable OS? Windows Mobile, Symbian, RIM, etc had all been around for years.

Perhaps you meant one with a "touch-centric" UI.

 

[iSayuSay]

The iPhone 5 was the first phone I've owned that truly felt fast enough. I've owned every iPhone, HTC One etc, and the iPhone 5 is super fast. The iPhone 5s is even faster, but with the current iOS design we're definitely reaching the point where I'd prefer more battery life over more speed.

There's no such thing as "fast enough" or "big enough". There will always be a faster, bigger, and more bad@$$ stuff.

I thought my 4S was fast enough but it's not anymore until I see the 5. I thought 1080p was good enough for another 10 years, turned out 4K is the new "enough" for the future.

It's all about optimization, iOS 5 felt perfect on iPhone 4S, up until iOS 7 cripples it down. Wait until iOS 10 and you'll feel how "not enough" an iPhone 5S really is 😛