A5 Chip in Tweaked Apple TV Still Manufactured by Samsung at 32nm

[whooleytoo]

Could you enlighten me? If I had to guess, it means "selling old crap to get your pipeline ready for new stuff".

I guess it's more like: if you're implementing a new design or manufacturing process, then the first product you manufacture is a lower-importance, lower volume device. Then if there are any flaws in the process (quite likely), the damage / costs / delays incurred are less significant.

 

[name99]

Disappointing to see Eric Slivka using slang words like fabbed.

Some of the writing on MacRumors is fairly poor, but I've always found Eric's articles to be very well-written.

WTF? In what way is fabbed an unreasonable word to use?

Are you unhappy that Shakespeare never used it in any of his works? The world changes, and especially the tech world is constantly adopting new words, not least because it HAS to, since we are dealing with things that did not exist before. Are you also upset that this blog uses the word blog? Do you complain when you see the words wiki, or CPU or RAM? Do you think that flash should refer to a fragment of light and nothing else?

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Kind of quirky to label it A5.

Perhaps same general functionality but a hand tuned transistor layout for most of the sub-components for the CPUs but still same tweaked ARM A9 basic functionality. Maybe a more efficiently implemented GPU that takes less space. in that context it would make sense to keep the A5 label but different.

They could dump a core if though that AppleTV didn't need it. ( and anything else that isn't used on an AppleTV. ) Effectively an optimized for only AppleTV SoC. As the volumes get bigger some of these products can get their own SoC if Apple has enough designers on staff and the optimizations pay off in lower foundry costs.

Same process means this will be cheaper to make on very mature processes (i.e.,g very high yields. ).

I don't think costs are an important part of the equation here. Redesigning makes sense for a very high volume product, but the AppleTV is not high enough volume to justify a redesign purely to reduce costs.
(And I don't believe this or any similar chip is going into an iWatch. The iWatch will be just like its competitors are --- a companion to an iPhone/iPod Touch consisting of a touch screen, low-power bluetooth, and very minimal logic, RAM, and storage. Anything more ambitious is simply not possible with today's battery technology.)

Which is why I think this is all about experimentation and learning on the part of Apple --- the point of this part is, IMHO, that it contains a whole bunch of redesigned basic blocks, which Apple has tweaked and is testing for future use in the large-volume future chips for iPad and iPhone. The point is the experimentation; the lower area is just a nice side effect, but is not the REASON for the new part.

 

[alent1234]

Could you enlighten me? If I had to guess, it means "selling old crap to get your pipeline ready for new stuff".

when you manufacture CPU's, most never come out perfect. it used to be you junked the bad ones. now you use lasers to disable circuitry and sell it as a lower model SKU. Nvidia and ATI have been doing this for years. different GPU SKU will be the same generation but with different core counts, different memory pipelines, etc.

Intel would just rate better manufactured CPU's for higher speeds. in the 90's people would buy 133MHz or lower Pentiums and over clock them. most times they ran perfectly because Intel just needed some lower end SKU's and marked a CPU for a lower rating.

the Apple TV is an amazing product because the A5 chip in there is a manufacturing reject. instead of throwing it out along with the money it cost to make it, apple created a product around. doesn't matter that the margins on it are tiny. it saves money just by using up "bad" CPU's

and since its a low volume product apple can use it as a test bed for new manufacturing processes like its doing now.

 

[kemal]

Sorry if this was already mentioned.

Wasn't the A5 in the first aTV g3 a dual core with one core failed? Perhaps the new chip is just a single core.

 

[SmileyBlast!]

How... How did Chipworks get my dental records?

 

[mohremail]

Cores?

Sorry if this was already mentioned.

Wasn't the A5 in the first aTV g3 a dual core with one core failed? Perhaps the new chip is just a single core.

I asked the same thing... Is this still a single or is this a dual core chip running both cores?

 

[puckhead193]

so is this 'new' apple tv worth buying now?

how would one know if buying a new apple tv with a tweaked A5...

 

[Count Blah]

Chipworks' Jim Morrison notes that it is unclear exactly what Apple's larger plans are for this chip, given that the Apple TV is not a high-enough volume product to justify creation of the new chip, so it is possible that Apple intends to use this A5 as a smaller, cheaper, and more power efficient chip for its rumored lower-cost iPhone or perhaps the next-generation of iPod touch.

Come on Jim, break on through, ride the snake, Tell all the people, The End

 

[ufwa]

when you manufacture CPU's, most never come out perfect. it used to be you junked the bad ones. now you use lasers to disable circuitry and sell it as a lower model SKU. Nvidia and ATI have been doing this for years. different GPU SKU will be the same generation but with different core counts, different memory pipelines, etc.

Intel would just rate better manufactured CPU's for higher speeds. in the 90's people would buy 133MHz or lower Pentiums and over clock them. most times they ran perfectly because Intel just needed some lower end SKU's and marked a CPU for a lower rating.

the Apple TV is an amazing product because the A5 chip in there is a manufacturing reject. instead of throwing it out along with the money it cost to make it, apple created a product around. doesn't matter that the margins on it are tiny. it saves money just by using up "bad" CPU's

and since its a low volume product apple can use it as a test bed for new manufacturing processes like its doing now.

What do you described is Binning.

 

[somethingelsefl]

First thing I thought of when I saw just how small they could make these things...(and magnify them!)

 

[hundleton1]

Perhaps they have created a true single core chip as they don't have enough of the rejected 2 core models to keep with demand. Also if a cheaper iPhone or other device is coming that a single core will be enough it makes more sense to build a true custom chip

 

[tekno]

WTF? In what way is fabbed an unreasonable word to use?

Are you unhappy that Shakespeare never used it in any of his works? The world changes, and especially the tech world is constantly adopting new words, not least because it HAS to, since we are dealing with things that did not exist before.

Slightly harsh, and your Shakespeare comment is really quite extreme and possibly slightly xenophobic. I guess you're right in that things need to move on and change, but I felt this went against Eric's normally excellent writing style.

I guess I'm just trying to keep-up Macrumors' normally good level of journalism (compared to the majority of other internet blogs).

 

[temna]

Perhaps they have created a true single core chip as they don't have enough of the rejected 2 core models to keep with demand. Also if a cheaper iPhone or other device is coming that a single core will be enough it makes more sense to build a true custom chip

Single core is NOT enough, as my iPhone 4 can attest. It freezes the whole phone every time it checks the email.

 

[hchung]

Disappointing to see Eric Slivka using slang words like fabbed.

Some of the writing on MacRumors is fairly poor, but I've always found Eric's articles to be very well-written.

Using words like "fabbed" has pretty much been normal when talking about chip fabrication for, say, the last 20 years. Certainly feels like it to me.
Not sure that's something to complain about.

Would you complain if you heard somebody say l10n?

 

[tekno]

Using words like "fabbed" has pretty much been normal when talking about chip fabrication for, say, the last 20 years. Certainly feels like it to me.
Not sure that's something to complain about.

Would you complain if you heard somebody say l10n?

I don't know what "l10n" is, so yes, I would.

Fabbed doesn't appear in the OED (nor the dictionary on my Mac/Android phone) so I would continue to argue that it has no place in an article on a respected website.

 

[deconstruct60]

....
I don't think costs are an important part of the equation here. Redesigning makes sense for a very high volume product, but the AppleTV is not high enough volume to justify a redesign purely to reduce costs.
(And I don't believe this or any similar chip is going into an iWatch. The iWatch will be just like its competitors are --- a companion to an iPhone/iPod Touch consisting of a touch screen, low-power bluetooth, and very minimal logic, RAM, and storage. Anything more ambitious is simply not possible with today's battery technology.)

AppleTV is probably coupled to the iPod Touch. At least the entry level one, if not the whole line up. AppleTV is tracking to about 2M/quarter on average now with a decent growth path. Throw in iPod Touch and more than double that. If they ever did a real AppleTV with embedded screen that would add more on top also.

There are enough here for a distinct subclass that is separate from the iPhone and iPad classes while still having volume.

The iWatch certainly wouldn't need the GPU ( which should be relatively easy to strip off or reduce.), but a single basic A5 core would help if they are targeting re-using iOS for the watch. There should be parts of the SoC that can chuck without having to do significant redesign.

Which is why I think this is all about experimentation and learning on the part of Apple --- the point of this part is, IMHO, that it contains a whole bunch of redesigned basic blocks, which Apple has tweaked and is testing for future use in the large-volume future chips for iPad and iPhone.

I don't think so because the iPhone has already moved past the ARM A9 architecture to a A7-A15 hybrid. That would be A6-lite or something like that. Unless, Apple is doing purposeful misdirection the simplest inference that this is still some ARM A9 variant.

I think the iPad and iPhone are going to detach from the rest of the iOS devices. They may even split into two themselves, but that likely could remain just a GPU core variation.

 

[deconstruct60]

... and obviously Apple wants that transition over-and-done as soon as possible, so it only has to maintain one OS and one toolchain (just like they hurried along the OSX 64-bit transition as rapidly as possible).

Not so obvious. The rumors so far point to iOS being forked and used in the Watch. It is forked in AppleTV. Both of those are good reasons because the interface of a larger touch screen, Television screen, and a Watch Screen are different. Just like the same core is used for OS X and iOS but very distinctive GUIs layered on top.

A comparison would be to the venerable PPC 750 CPU (which, back in the day when Apple used it, was called the G3 by Apple).
IBM STILL ships that part,

" .. In particular, IBM has no public plans to produce a 750-based microprocessor in a process smaller than 90 nm, effectively phasing it out as a commodity chip competitive in such markets as networking equipment. .. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_7xx

Note the documentation updates stopped several years ago.
https://www-01.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/products/PowerPC_750_Microprocessor


https://www-01.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/productfamilies/PowerPC


If you are talking about the later PowerPC variants targeted to embedded market yes. Where the 750 was targeted at not so much. The 750 lastest for a while because it was 32-bit and embedded folks like smaller code and don't tend to have more than 4GB of memory.

My guess is that that's the sort of place Apple will strive to be in, once they have their 64-bit ARM part nailed down --- something that works well, has been optimized to the max, and that can just be cranked out at minimal cost by the billions.

Why would a embedded TV SoC need a 64-bit ARM CPU core ? iPads eventually yes ( two more major iterations could be close to 4GB ). iPhones maybe a little later. The rest though aren't so clear.

 

[HVDynamo]

Single core is NOT enough, as my iPhone 4 can attest. It freezes the whole phone every time it checks the email.

While I agree that the iPhone 4 is beginning to feel slower (I am still using mine), a single core A5 has design improvements that will improve performance, as well as power consumption. Considering that it is on a smaller process, it could even be clocked a bit higher to match the same power consumption while pushing out a little more performance. So it would definitely be faster than what is currently in an iPhone 4, but I am not sure how much faster. Realistically though, if they are shooting for the low cost market they have to cut corners somewhere and people willing to buy a cheap phone probably aren't going to complain too much about the performance so long as it works. Also, make note of how the A4 in the ATV2 only did 720p well, and with a single core A5 the ATV3 does 1080p without issue, Although that probably has more to do with the GPU than anything else.

 

[temna]

While I agree that the iPhone 4 is beginning to feel slower (I am still using mine), a single core A5 has design improvements that will improve performance, as well as power consumption. Considering that it is on a smaller process, it could even be clocked a bit higher to match the same power consumption while pushing out a little more performance. So it would definitely be faster than what is currently in an iPhone 4, but I am not sure how much faster. Realistically though, if they are shooting for the low cost market they have to cut corners somewhere and people willing to buy a cheap phone probably aren't going to complain too much about the performance so long as it works. Also, make note of how the A4 in the ATV2 only did 720p well, and with a single core A5 the ATV3 does 1080p without issue, Although that probably has more to do with the GPU than anything else.

It doesn't have anything to do with power usage or speed. A single core can only really do one thing at a time, so if it checks email in the background, the foreground app is going to freeze. That's just the way things work and why there is a big push to multicore chips.

 

[mozumder]

I don't know what "l10n" is, so yes, I would.

Fabbed doesn't appear in the OED (nor the dictionary on my Mac/Android phone) so I would continue to argue that it has no place in an article on a respected website.

Speaking as an ASIC design engineer, fabbed is the correct grammar.

OED has no place in an article about technology.

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I guess this is a true single core A5. Even, then there are likely even more cutbacks to achieve the 50% size reduction since CPU cores and even GPU cores aren't big enough to make up the difference.

Not necessarily.

ARM claims their upcoming A53 architecture can achieve the same performance as their A9 architecture with a 60% reduction in size at the same process, through optimization of the design.

Maybe Apple did the same CPU optimizations?

 

[AppleScruff1]

Come on Jim, break on through, ride the snake, Tell all the people, The End

I got that.

 

[hchung]

I don't know what "l10n" is, so yes, I would.

Fabbed doesn't appear in the OED (nor the dictionary on my Mac/Android phone) so I would continue to argue that it has no place in an article on a respected website.

As mozumder basically points out, different fields have different lingos, and whether or not the words show up in the OED means little.

Those familiar with the two terms have learned at least two things about you:
1) You haven't studied nor worked near people doing digital design.
2) You, if you ever worked in software, haven't had to deal with foreign languages.

 

[tekno]

As mozumder basically points out, different fields have different lingos, and whether or not the words show up in the OED means little.

Those familiar with the two terms have learned at least two things about you:
1) You haven't studied nor worked near people doing digital design.
2) You, if you ever worked in software, haven't had to deal with foreign languages.

I would argue this is all a bit of a moot point, as I don't think you're suggesting Macrumors is a website only for those who understand niche industry jargon. Surely it's a website aimed at anyone interested in Apple?

This all stems from me pointing out my disappointment at Eric Slivka, an otherwise excellent article writer, using "fabbed" as opposed to fabricated.

I also think slang is different to technical jargon and internet speak.

 

[HVDynamo]

It doesn't have anything to do with power usage or speed. A single core can only really do one thing at a time, so if it checks email in the background, the foreground app is going to freeze. That's just the way things work and why there is a big push to multicore chips.

Actually it does have to do with power usage and speed. If it's faster, other apps spend less time waiting on the processor. So it would appear faster, and lower power usage means they could clock the chip faster. I never said it would be as fast as a dual core. I did say that it would be faster than an A4, which is what is in both of our iPhone 4's. Regardless, this is all speculation anyhow, but I don't see this being a bad option for the low cost iPhone if the rumor is indeed true. Or, maybe they are just trying out some technology improvements with the process with plans to implement it in the A6 for a low cost iPhone later.

 

[temna]

Actually it does have to do with power usage and speed. If it's faster, other apps spend less time waiting on the processor. So it would appear faster, and lower power usage means they could clock the chip faster. I never said it would be as fast as a dual core. I did say that it would be faster than an A4, which is what is in both of our iPhone 4's. Regardless, this is all speculation anyhow, but I don't see this being a bad option for the low cost iPhone if the rumor is indeed true. Or, maybe they are just trying out some technology improvements with the process with plans to implement it in the A6 for a low cost iPhone later.

Personally, I find it ridiculous that Apple would develop a single core A5. With the A6 and possibly the A7 being out there, not using a full A5 is a stupid move. Waste money redesigning the A5, have yet another part to stock, for absolutely no reason. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.