While the Cortex-A9 MPCore would be an excellent choice as CPU for an ARM based SoC in the Apple A4 class, the Mali-50 would be really crappy as GPU, far inferior to the PowerVR based GPUs which sits in any iPhone and iPod touch. I can for certain say that there can't be a Mali-50 GPU in the iPad since it doesn't support the resolutions (720p) and 3D capabilities (OpenGL|ES 2.x) that the iPad obviously supports. So this source is quite off on at least one account.
Apple wouldn't need an in-house design bureau for a Coretex-A9 MPCore + Mali-200/400 based SoC. These are produced by other companies already. My understanding of the purchase of P.A. Semi was that they would do a really custom made SoC, perhaps with a ARM pipeline/core of their own, incorporating some really custom IP that no-one else has. Perhaps this will come in future, but it these specs stands, this is a pretty ordinary high end ARM SoC.
As far as the name is concerned.. it's a name, it doesn't have to mean anything. The "A" probably stands for "ARM" or "Apple" and the number might indicate that they've had three generations of processors in previous iPhone/iPod touch.
Apple wouldn't need an in-house design bureau for a Coretex-A9 MPCore + Mali-200/400 based SoC. These are produced by other companies already. My understanding of the purchase of P.A. Semi was that they would do a really custom made SoC, perhaps with a ARM pipeline/core of their own, incorporating some really custom IP that no-one else has. Perhaps this will come in future, but it these specs stands, this is a pretty ordinary high end ARM SoC.
As far as the name is concerned.. it's a name, it doesn't have to mean anything. The "A" probably stands for "ARM" or "Apple" and the number might indicate that they've had three generations of processors in previous iPhone/iPod touch.
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