4 ms·
So, what does this chip do that, say, a Snapdragon doesn't?
by ssp 17y ago
So, what does this chip do that, say, a Snapdragon doesn't?
- wmf 17y agoGenerate a reality distortion field.
- sschueller 17y agoCustom chip makes it hard to hack with no documentation and possible encryption built in.
- jacquesm 17y agoYou may be on to something there.
- jws 17y agoIt is almost certainly based on the Cortex A9 instead of the A8 that current Snapdragons use, which means multiple cores. Apple knows how to use multiple cores effectively and the ability to stop them when not using them is a nice power savings. Snapdragons extend by adding in the wireless circuitry. I'd wager that A4 left that to other chips and extended with someone's graphic rendering engine, say Imagination Technologies? But I think the most important reason is that it lets Apple make the design decisions that make sense for their projected use, not what some chip house thinks will be the focus three years down the road.
- timthorn 17y agoThe Snapdragon and Cortex A8 are both implementations of the ARM V7A architecture, but are completely separate designs. The Snapdragon is Qualcomm's version and is unique to Qualcomm, whereas the Cortex A8 is licensed by ARM to third parties. It's the same as Intel and AMD both making x86 chips; the ISA is the same but the design is different. However, ARM is more than happy to let Qualcomm design thier own.
- jws 17y agoAh, yes. I misread the wikipedia page. similar to A8, not A8.
- jjfromchicago 17y agoI thought Cortex A8 was TI's implementation of ARMv7 and Snapdragon Qualcomm's: the ISAs are the same but Snapdragon can run distinct cores at distinct speeds because of disjoint caches per core, beneficial for power savings, for example. Check http://www.arm.com/miscPDFs/14128.pdf http://www.arm.com/miscPDFs/14128.pdf for more details than are simple to read.
- timthorn 17y agoNo, the Cortex A8 hard macro was designed with TI as a lead customer, but is an ARM design.