‘iPhone 5′ To Get Apple’s Next Generation A6 Chip?

Posted by iPhoneHacks on Aug 30, 2012 | Comments (7)

It has been widely speculated that Apple’s next generation iPhone will be powered by a variant of the A5X system-on-chip that currently powers the 3rd generation iPad.

We’ve also heard rumors that Apple has been testing next generation iPhone prototypes with A5X variant, 1GB RAM in iPhone 4S casing.

Sonny Dickson who has published quite a few photos of the leaked next generation iPhone parts recently, has just published a photo, which appears to be the next generation iPhone’s motherboard.

As you can see in the image below, it reveals that the hotly anticipated ‘iPhone 5′ will be powered by Apple’s next generation system-on-chip dubbed ‘A6′.

Dickson also tweeted:

Yes, #NewiPhone will be a A6.  

Apple’s 1 GHz dual-core A5 chip powered iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. iPad 3 was widely expected to get the A6 chip, but  it came with a 1 GHz dual-core A5X chip and quad core graphics (as fast as A5 with improved graphics).

So based on last two years trend, it was speculated that ‘iPhone 5′ will get a variant of the A5X chip. But if the leaked part is indeed authentic, then it looks like Apple will surprise us with the next generation A6 chip, which could be significantly faster with quad-core processor.

The A6 will square off against quad-core mobile processors from Texas Instruments, Nvidia, Qualcomm and also Samsung’s 1.4 GHz Exynos quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 chip that powers Samsung Galaxy S III.

It remains to be seen if A6 will be based on ARM’s Cortex-A9 processor, which is the same design used in the A5 and A5X or it will be based on the next generation Cortex-A15 processor. The first devices based on that design were not expected to ship until late this year or early 2013.

Please note that the validity of the images cannot be confirmed, so please take this with a pinch of salt.

Update 1:

Here’s another photo of the purported next generation iPhone’s with A6 chip (via 9to5Mac):

Update 2:

Marco Arment – developer of Instapaper expects the next iPhone to come to be powered by a new chip rather than a variant of the A5X chip used in iPad 3. He writes:

The A5X is too big and hot to run in the iPhone. Even a die shrink wouldn’t make it ideal.

And the A5X doesn’t have any CPU-power advantage over the A5 — the primary difference is much more parallel GPU power to drive the iPad 3’s Retina display. That’s why CPU-bound operations on screen images, such as visual effects usingrenderInContext:, are actually much slower on the iPad 3: four times as many pixels are being processed by the same CPU power as the iPad 2.

There’s not much need for a big, hot, power-sucking, GPU-only boost to the iPhone.

But there is demand for more CPU and GPU power together, in a small and efficient package suitable for the phone’s size and battery capacity. Of course it will be a new chip, not the A5X, and of course they’d name it the A6.

What do you think about the possibility of the next generation iPhone with a quad-core A6 chip?

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  • Alan

    Finally something to look forward to.

  • George Welsted

    If they want to keep the foothold they have they are going to have to do something awesome with this phone the capabilty from a performace standpoint on some of the android handsets is starting to way outpace the a5 chip…

    • moe22

      I think about that too. but really if you think about it android isnt utilizing all the hardware correctly anyway. So iPhones still being dual core is not an issue since they still out weigh in every other aspect making it still alot better than most androids. but the A6 will just be showing off for apple. They would not release a quadcore CPU without a quadcore suitable OS.

  • Juan

    Ahh that chip si too long for an iphone and not wide enough also the holes dont support it in small body I think thats a ipad board has the correct dimensions for it there is rummor of newer improved ipad also being anounced although hop not some people will be very angry

  • Moe

    Hope it comes with the a6. Anything else will be a disappointment!

  • Repair on 6th

    The question should be not if it’ll comes out with A6 , but what A6 is. quad core with 6 core GPU ? And honestly I already have some reservations on buying this phone because “tall” design is not something I want to have, more like a brick is okay with me. After 4S … to SGSII back to 4” iPhone 5 ? Nah ……

  • KyleRay

    Apple’s Jim Keller, who designed the A4, A5 and A5x, has recently left Apple and followed Mark Papermaster to AMD, to work on Steamroller Project. So my guess is that you’ll be seeing 3rd party chips power iPHone 5.

    SAMSUNG has told Apple to take their chip business and shove it where the sun don’t shine. They’ve now got more than enough customers to take their place. So Apple is now stuck with the Fab they originally threatened to go to. More expensive Fab in TSMC and all their Engineering and Yield problems to go with it! ……so bad that even though both Qualcomm and Apple offered Billions for Exclusive chip wafer supplies, nearly got a guarantee from TSMC. Which means if troubles persist, no company gets any guaranteed chip supplies over any other customer!
    SAMSUNG on the other hand, now with Nvidia a loyal customer making both Tegra 3 and 4 chips, they’re in good shape. They recently won over Qualcomm, Broadcom and other fabless chip designers from TSMC’s problems. Now they’re so busy they’re investing another 4 billion in Austin Texas, Phoenix Arizona fabrication plants and California R&D Semiconductor facilities in Silicon Valley next year too!

    All SAMSUNG will be doing for Apple is fulfilling their present contract with Apple for A4, A5 and A5x and when that’s up end of next year, they’re saying good riddance to Apple for good! Serves Apple right for getting the biggest screen and parts maker in the World mad at them!