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wizard

macrumors 68040
May 29, 2003
3,854
571
A most interesting point, this chip could make for an even more interesting HDMI adapter. As far as time capsule and Airport Express, right now I believe third parties can supply chips better optimized for those products.

Maybe also an updated Time Capsule and Airport Express using the chip? The GPU would be wasted. But I believe both products are based on ARM already.
Actually we don't have a handle on that GPU, if it supported GPU Compute or has other modifications it could be useful of other acceleration duties.
Again, revisiting the HDMI converter... they currently decompress the HD video in software... the A5 has hardware decoding; they could be using it for an updated adapter that has higher quality.

Apples leadership is interesting here though, such a chip could easily be sold to general industry. Frankly I don't know of anything that has this size and capability built into it. You could build one excellent single board computer, for embedded use, on a little 5 cm square board.
 

Menel

Suspended
Aug 4, 2011
6,351
1,356
A most interesting point, this chip could make for an even more interesting HDMI adapter. As far as time capsule and Airport Express, right now I believe third parties can supply chips better optimized for those products.


Actually we don't have a handle on that GPU, if it supported GPU Compute or has other modifications it could be useful of other acceleration duties.


Apples leadership is interesting here though, such a chip could easily be sold to general industry. Frankly I don't know of anything that has this size and capability built into it. You could build one excellent single board computer, for embedded use, on a little 5 cm square board.
Nothing particularly unique about a single core ARM CortexA9.

Many players in market could create this at the snap of a finger. Samsung, TI, Qualcomm, nVidia etc.

wiki
Several system on a chip (SoC) devices implement the Cortex-A9 core, including:
Altera SoC FPGA[5]
Amlogic AML8726-M[6]
Apple A5, A5X
Broadcom BCM11311 (Persona ICE)[7]
Calxeda EnergyCore ECX-1000[8]
Freescale Semiconductor i.MX6[9]
HiSilicon[10] K3V2 -Hi3620[11]
MediaTek MT6575 [12] (single core), MT6577 [13] (dual core)
Nufront NuSmart 2816, 2816M, 115[14]
Nvidia Tegra 2 (without NEON extensions), Tegra 3 and Tegra 4i
Trident Microsystems 847x/8x/9x SoC family[15]
Renesas Electronics EMMA Mobile/EV2
Samsung Exynos 4210,[16] 4212, 4412
Sony PlayStation Vita[17]
Rockchip RK3066,[18] RK292x, RK31xx
STMicroelectronics SPEAr1310,[19] SPEAr1340[20]
ST-Ericsson Nova A9500, NovaThor U8500,[21] NovaThor U9500[22]
Texas Instruments OMAP4 processors
Xilinx Extensible Processing Platform[23]
ZiiLABS ZMS-20[24]
 

CausticPuppy

macrumors 68000
May 1, 2012
1,536
68
I'd say it's pretty obvious they're tinkering with this chip to use it in the iWatch....

The A4 is too big (and on its way out anyways), so the A5 is the logical choice to be tinkered with and put into the iWatch.

The iWatch could just use that chip that's in the Lightning A/V connector.
 

MattInOz

macrumors 68030
Jan 19, 2006
2,760
0
Sydney
Maybe also an updated Time Capsule and Airport Express using the chip? The GPU would be wasted. But I believe both products are based on ARM already.

Again, revisiting the HDMI converter... they currently decompress the HD video in software... the A5 has hardware decoding; they could be using it for an updated adapter that has higher quality.

Well the GPU wouldn't be wasted if the full airport range were updated to have Airplay/AppleTV function with HDMI out.
 

oculus42

macrumors 6502
Dec 9, 2002
320
6
Maine
I thought this might be used to update the HDMI Lightning connector, since it can clearly push 1080p, and at 6mm, it should fit nicely.
 

MrXiro

macrumors 68040
Nov 2, 2007
3,850
599
Los Angeles
Any chance this will be used in the iPhone 5S? It may be a slight reduction in performance, but the increase in battery life and the ability to shrink the device pretty significantly might be worth it.

Low end cheap iPhone is more likely. Single core. Good enough to barely run apps and make calls.
 

wizard

macrumors 68040
May 29, 2003
3,854
571
Nothing particularly unique about a single core ARM CortexA9.

Many players in market could create this at the snap of a finger. Samsung, TI, Qualcomm, nVidia etc.

wiki
There are many ARM chips out there but how many this small with this mix of capabilities? Right now not many. Maybe an Apple Pie to compete with the Raspberry Pie?

Now if this sounds strange to you it is due in part for my desire to see Apple attend to its educational roots. Mac Books and iPads are great for education in general but terrible for learning about electronics in the way that Raspberry Pie has energized the field. A tiny board from Apple, maybe coupled with some solid extensions to XCode could produce a very capable board to support the educational and tinkering world. Considering apples volumes, the pricing on Apple TV and other factors I could see Apple selling the platform for under $70. Still expensive compared to Raspberry Pie but it should be far more capable with an open iOS dirivative and some good video drivers.
 

thirumalkumaran

macrumors member
Apr 22, 2010
42
0
Update a few and a new...

This chip i sgoing to replace ipod touch 5th gen (same A5 single core).

and most important, the new low cost iphone...
The major features.
A5 architecture to run all apps.
integrated image processor for 1080p capture, panorama.
5MP camera (for Low cost iphone) can easily support.
support retina display and optimize ios for same instructions (intrducing new Soc needs new drives and optimisation)

simple... its for ipod touch and an ipod touch with cell radio.. (Low cost iphone)
 

Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
Neat.. :)

I'm just wondering, at which POINT in history will Apple will say "This is not a hobby"

Seems Apple putting "thought" into this.... Tell me again?
 

scott911

macrumors 6502a
Aug 24, 2009
758
456
Seems clear that apple likes using the apple tv as a test platform - hope audio performance doesn't suffer with the shrinkage...

I often use an apple tv to act as my 'source' for an audio system costing roughly a thousand times more (if I have my math right) than the apple TV and I'm always worried about performance of what should be the weakest link in the chain.

Does an awesome job though I must say! :D
 

APlotdevice

macrumors 68040
Sep 3, 2011
3,145
3,861
This chip i sgoing to replace ipod touch 5th gen (same A5 single core).

and most important, the new low cost iphone...
The major features.
A5 architecture to run all apps.
integrated image processor for 1080p capture, panorama.
5MP camera (for Low cost iphone) can easily support.
support retina display and optimize ios for same instructions (intrducing new Soc needs new drives and optimisation)

simple... its for ipod touch and an ipod touch with cell radio.. (Low cost iphone)
The iPod touch uses the dual-core A5. Technically it's the same processor as the older third-gen AppleTVs, but the second core is enabled.
 

dreadnort

macrumors regular
Jun 12, 2012
104
19
Still finding it difficult to cut those Samsung apron strings, lots can make the chip but how many can make them that small?
 

vmachiel

macrumors 68000
Feb 15, 2011
1,772
1,440
Holland
I agree with the first few comments: seems like a great way to test a chip design for the "iWatch". Still not sure I see the need for one but hey, I was sceptic about the iPad and tablets in general :)
 

deconstruct60

macrumors G5
Mar 10, 2009
12,227
3,826
As opposed to chips they already have in production? Why would they spend the "R&D" money to figure out how to make it smaller when they are already cranking out a ton of these puppies for a variety of different devices....

Because for a contract fab you pay by the process silicon wafer. On a single wafer 100's , 1000's or 10,000's of dies can be printed. It all depends upon the size of the wafer ( pretty big these days 400mm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafer_(electronics)#Standard_wafer_sizes ) and the size of the die ( which in this case talking around 6mm square )

If there are 20 working dies on the wafer or 200 working dies on the wafer you pay the same cost. That is the knocks of being a being in the CPU business. That fact that Apple is in that business now is why.




But why would they go to all the trouble (and R&D spend) to bring the cost down on a product they don't sell many of to begin with?

This is a relatively dubious position.

Apple is selling around 2M AppleTVs a quarter. That makes for about 8M/year. In the previous years they have been large double digit growth. 2013 they could probably easily do 10-12M/year even without an integrated LCD panel version.

That is far from being "don't sell that many". That is pretty close to the total number of Macs sold per year. Up next to the iPhone, no. Up next to iPad, no. Relative to products most folks can sell. yes. It is only a "hobby" because the iPhone and iPad happen to be growing much faster right now.

You are also ignoring the coupling between AppleTV and iTunes store sales growth. Selling content has alot more long term strategic value that $0.00 iFart apps and $0.99 minor-distraction apps. As Apple sells more AppleTVs the margin on AppleTV needs to be just as high as the other stuff so that overall corporate profit margin doesn't go down. It probably wasn't that far off before but they probably have a bigger cushion over the long term now.


It is also not like some of these functional subcomponents won't also show up in other of Apple's SoC designs.

The reality is that these are just CPUs. What used to be motherboard design 10 years ago is gradually turning into chip-die design now. Various Macs and iOS devices use common subcomponents across products. For example, same Wifi/Bluetotth module will show up in several Macs. It is the exact same principle here. Optimized non-CPU subcomponents are shrunk for all of the different SoC designs. The cost for those subcomponents, if shared , can be spread over all the products.

The R&D cost are not 100% localized to this specific implementation.
 

deconstruct60

macrumors G5
Mar 10, 2009
12,227
3,826
iWatch, obviously. :rolleyes:

Shouldn't even need as much horsepower as a single core A5.

Indeed an A5, even single core, is overkill depending upon what kinds of apps going to put on the watch.

Macrumors covered the iFixit tearddown for Pebble

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/13/pebble-smart-watch-waterproofing-makes-repairs-impossible/

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Pebble+Teardown/13319/1?singlePage

There is a Cortex-M3 in there. ARM has different classes of ARM SoC. The M3 is an even lower powered and sized class than the ARM A9 class

http://www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-m/cortex-m3.php

M3 basic chip Floorplan < 1 mm^2 ( forgoing things like L2 caches )

In contrast to the ARM A9

http://www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-a/cortex-a9.php


Apple will probably use something with a higher transistor density and the two core GPU will probably get chucked but this new A5 is too big and too power hungry for a watch.

----------

There are many ARM chips out there but how many this small with this mix of capabilities? Right now not many. Maybe an Apple Pie to compete with the Raspberry Pie?

There are tons of ARMs out there that are smaller if willing to back off of hitting smartphone performance target levels.

Most TV and Optical disk players these days come with ARM chips in them. It is a bit of myopic viewpoint to think that ARM didn't have large volume business outside of smartphones before Apple made them more popular.
 

iampatrick

macrumors newbie
Mar 15, 2013
2
0
Analog is good...

Wouldn't that be cool a computer with analog processing? I think it could be faster than digital, right?
 
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