Apple Launches Its Own CPU, the 1GHz A4

[tuannguyen]

[citation][nom]mav1014[/nom]Is this article a joke? The A4 won't power HD playback for 10 hours. They said the iPad has a battery life of ten hours (which means more like 6-8) and they’re certainly not quoting that with HD playback. Also how do you know it out performs the Snapdragon? No tests have been done and the Snapdragon processor can also power devices with HD resolutions. Know your fact before you write junk like this. You must be a complete Apple fanboy.[/citation]

And for the record, I said the iPad seems dull to me in the article.

 

[wildwell]

I agree with most here that Apple probably won't share their new A4 chip, but only time will tell.

 

[eyemaster]

Doesn't matter how good that chip is. We all know there's a group of people that will flock to and buy this chip wether it's a crap one or great one.

 

[Someguyperson]

Is everyone drinking the Cool-Aid? What about Tegra 2 with TWO OUT-OF-ORDER cores. I'm also thinking the GPU could destroy this processor while using less power. Did everyone forget about all of the tablets that were released at CES last week? The only thing that makes this "better" is the fact that Apple made it. No wonder so many doctors prescribe Ritalin these days.

 

[coldmast]

I was really hoping for something that actually used full blown OSX; like a touch screen MacBook Air? This is good attempt at a great product but it seems to me like a glorified iPod Touch. I'll have to see how good of an e-reader this will make in day light since other e-book readers are specialized for day light.

 

[voxadam]

Considering that Qualcomm's 1GHz Snapdragon powers Google's Nexus One, the Apple A4 could power the next wave of super-smartphones.

One slightly important difference between the Snapdragon and the A4 is the latter of the two is missing a baseband processor. I'm pretty sure we've seen the end of the days where smartphones contain a discreet cellular modem; single die implementations are simply far more power efficient.

 

[gxsolace]

[citation][nom]voxadam[/nom]One slightly important difference between the Snapdragon and the A4 is the latter of the two is missing a baseband processor. I'm pretty sure we've seen the end of the days where smartphones contain a discreet cellular modem; single die implementations are simply far more power efficient.[/citation]

The A4 actually does have a baseband processor in it. It's just in the cheaper version, it's disabled.

 

[tipoo]

But is it a completely new architecture, or is it based around ARM reference designs like the A8 or A9?


In any case, with Tegra 2 (dual A9's) and Snapdragon 2 (dual 1.5GHz Snapdragon cores) around the corner, the Apple A4 leaves me unimpressed.

 

[webbwbb]

[citation][nom]eddieroolz[/nom]Will Apple become a semiconductor manufacturer? Only time will tell.[/citation]

There is a significant problem with this plan. Apple LOVES exclusivity. They keep everything as proprietary as possible. With that in mind, think of the cost of producing a CPU. Nvidia's CEO has said that it generally costs a billion dollars to bring a chip from concept to manufacturing.

Now you have a billion dollars spent in research and no profit and you still do not have a product. It can be pretty expensive to start manufacturing chips. At most companies will have spent around $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion but they can now sell their product and start to recoup some of the expense they put into it. However, this does not fit in with the Apple business model.

Apple will want to keep it for internal use only. This means that after spending over a billion dollars and over a year on a product they now have to spend even more time and money on hardware and software development. This is while they command a small percentage of the PC market (3%). It MAY work for the mobile sector where they have more of an advantage but if they ever release a dud it could have huge ramifications. This tablet is a major gamble that could account for large losses if things do not go exceedingly well for them.

 

[thomaseron]

Who would ever think that apple would become responsible for the terminators...

 

[voxadam]

[citation][nom]gxsolace[/nom]The A4 actually does have a baseband processor in it. It's just in the cheaper version, it's disabled.[/citation]

Who did they get a baseband core from? I don't remember PA Semi having such an offering and designing DSPs is completely different than designing general purpose CPUs.

 

[Guest]

The A4 can play back HD (which probably means HD ready) for 10 hours most likely because of the battery. If you give a SnapDragon/Tegra/TI OMAP a 3000 mAh battery (one that powers most netbooks), it'll definetely do the same. Because this is probably based on Cortex A8 anyway, this chip won't be much different from others.

 

[Guest]

apple did not develop their own processor.

it is an ARM based core.

 

[Guest]

Models A1 through A3 were not entirely successful.

 

[gurthang]

[citation][nom]tuannguyen[/nom]Apple said at the event, that it can read a book, do browsing, or watch videos, for 10 hours. And they even said on their website for the iPad:"# Up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video, or listening to music. Testing consisted of full battery discharge while performing each of the following tasks: video playback, audio playback, and Internet browsing using Wi-Fi. Video content was a repeated 2-hour 23-minute movie purchased from the iTunes Store. Audio content was a playlist of 358 unique songs, consisting of a combination of songs imported from CDs using iTunes (128-Kbps AAC encoding) and songs purchased from the iTunes Store (256-Kbps AAC encoding). Internet over Wi-Fi tests were conducted using a closed network and dedicated web and mail servers, browsing snapshot versions of 20 popular web pages, and receiving mail once an hour."Maybe you should get your facts straight?/ Tuan[/citation]

I would be careful with those quotes. Notice all the cheats.
No mention of video resolution used. Upscaling ipod resolution video of unknown compression level is not the same as decoding a 1920x1080 blue-ray disc video stream. So yes new out of the box it can play up to 10 hours of ipod video and nothing else.
Browsing using wifi where you are right next to the AP using snapshots so everything is right there and pushed instantly using, virtually no errors, minimum transmission power, etc Smells like an idealized test to me.
Honestly tegra and other moble video/system chips have brought down power costs and cpu usage for all of these kinds of activities that used to be done only on the CPU for far less power. Claiming that the Apple A4 is amazing because it is used in a device that can do this without knowing more about the device's hardware makes this article amost all speculation. And honestly I am tired of it. Get the device, do a tear down and honest real world testing and then post when you have the real deal.

 

[MountainFlip]

But can it support multitasking?

 

[ezodagrom]

Unimpressive.
In the Nvidia CES conference it was said that Tegra 2 can play 16 hours of HD video.

 

[tipoo]

[citation][nom]zipzoomflyhigh[/nom]Apple didn't design it, PA Semiconductor did.[/citation]


Thats like saying AMD doesn't make graphics cards, ATI does. AMD bought them, therefore its their product.


Man, you just made me defend Apple.

*Shudders*

Don't do that again.

 

[Guest]

I think a A4 is a 64bit Risc chip. the HD 720p video they talk about is not the same as blu-ray 1080p. I would say that iphone processor can already decode 720p running 0.6GHz. it would be interesting to see how the two chips compare power per watt. ARM's new cortex A9 chip can be run as a duel core or even quad core. and their new mobile graphics chip can do 1080p no problem and very advanced 3D at very very low power . so the A4 seems a bit average so far. apart from being 64bit which just means it uses twice the power for a 10% boost in perforce. but it's still early days yet. how long would a ipad battery last with a 1Ghz iphone 3GS processor (ARM CORTEX A8) maybe 12hours.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/20/iphone-3gs-totally-capable-of-1080p-video-playback/

personal I think that apple should have gone with duel core 800Mhz ARM cortex A9 with a ARM mali 200 graphic chip. think that would give it best performance per watt ie best battery life.

 

[Gin Fushicho]

WOW! 10 hours?! TEN?! I want one of those in my next laptop.

 

[HavoCnMe]

Can't wait to see what the future holds down the road, maybe ppl will start have OC'ed PowerMac's. in the future Tom's will have articles like, "how to get the most out of your Mac" or "Mac holds OC record!" We will have to see.....

 

[hhb6]

They bought a cpu to stop hackintosh
lame

 

[Guest]

Agree, bound to be a ARM A9 with some gfx chip bonded on...

Yawn.....

You Apple fanboys (girls) make me sick.

 

[ktasley]

Tuan... don't stoop to their level,

And the proc doesn't have a battery life, the battery has a battery life.

And I know I am backing the a**hole here, but no-where in that quote does it say HD.

Not trying to knock your article though, keep up the good work.

 

[Guest]

"In any case, with Tegra 2 (dual A9's) and Snapdragon 2 (dual 1.5GHz Snapdragon cores) around the corner, the Apple A4 leaves me unimpressed."

As the women say, it is not the size/length of the tool that matters, but how you use it !!!