History of the Apple Processor

Today we’re going to explore the history of Apple processors. There are four different series which power devices from the iPhone to the Apple TV, and may one day power your next MacBook, but we’ll talk about that later. This topic was the winner of last weeks voting poll and if you didn’t get to vote, make sure you’re subscribed, that way the voting polls will show up right in your activity feed and you can let me know which article you’d like to see next. Now before we get started I want to thank X-VPN for sponsoring this article.. If you guys don’t already use a VPN, now is a good time to start since you can download X-VPN for free on your mobile device, but I recommend paying the low $5.99 monthly fee for their premium service since you’ll get VPN support on up to 10 devices, whether they’re mobile devices or desktop computers. And what does X-VPN do exactly? Well it gives you complete anonymity on the web which eliminates vulnerabilities on open wifi networks and prevents your internet activity from being monitored by ISPs or government agencies. You’ll also have access to fast VPN servers in 25 different countries which means your favorite shows on Netflix or Hulu won’t be geo-blocked while traveling abroad. Also, X-VPN will unblock websites that are restricted at your school or workplace, which is one of my favorite features. So I highly recommend you give X-VPN a try today by clicking the link in the description. So most of us know that Apple’s a company who embraces proprietary technology. While other companies outsource, Apple keeps things in-house whenever possible, and the chips found in iOS devices are no exception. While Samsung, Microsoft, and HTC rely on Qualcomm and Intel for chipsets, Apple has its own team of engineers to work on proprietary designs exclusive to their devices. And it all started in 2008 when Apple purchased a small semiconductor company called P.A. Semi for a rumored $278 million in cash. Well, it technically started a little earlier than that. Because prior to the introduction of the Apple "A" series chipset, Apple designed several system-on-a-chips in early versions of the iPhone and iPod touch that were manufactured by Samsung. These chipsets integrated a single ARM-based processing core or CPU, a graphics processing unit or GPU, and other electronics necessary to provide mobile computing functions inside a single package. The first of these system-on-a-chips was used in the first iPhone in 2007. It was called the APL0098 and included a 412 MHz single-core ARM11 CPU and a PowerVR MBX Lite GPU on a 90 nm process. Now that probably sounded like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, but this technology is what enabled mobile devices to become powerful pocket computers that we can’t live without today. This chipset received three upgrades, the first was at the end of 2008 which included a faster 533 MHz CPU which was used by the second gen iPod Touch.

The second in mid 2009 which again saw its CPU upgraded, but this time to 600 MHz which was included in the iPhone 3GS. And the final upgrade of this series took place at the end of 2009 and featured a smaller footprint in order to fit inside the slim third-generation iPod touch. Now we can talk about the more popular series of processors that Apple has featured in their recent devices. And they’re the A series, S series, W series, and T series. Now you might be wondering why Apple developed four separate chipsets, and it’s because Apple’s different devices have different needs. Let’s start with the A series. The Apple A4 was based on the ARM processor architecture and contained an ARM Cortex-A8 CPU core paired with a PowerVR SGX 535 graphics processor built on Samsung's 45-nanometer silicon. Although it delivered a clock speed of 1GHz for the first gen iPad, this speed was reduced to 800 MHz when used in the iPhone 4 and fourth-gen iPod touch, likely to save battery life. And this A4 chipset was also included in the Apple TV, but its clock speed was never revealed by Apple. In March 2011, Apple revealed the updated A5 chipset with the release of the iPad 2. Followed by its inclusion in the iPhone 4s later that year. Apple claimed that the A5’s updated CPU "could do twice the work" and its GPU had "up to nine times the graphics performance.” This huge jump in performance was mainly because of the dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU with ARM's advanced SIMD extension, marketed as NEON. And a dual core PowerVR GPU which could push between 70 to 80 million polygons a second. Apple clocked the A5 at 1 GHz on the iPad 2, though it could dynamically adjust its frequency to save battery life. Its clock speed on the iPhone 4S was 800 MHz and like the A4, the A5 process size was 45 nm, which meant its physical size didn’t change. But later in 2011 Apple did shrink the A5 chipset with an updated 32 nanometer version. Not only was it smaller, but it was about 20% more power efficient too. And while those improvements were much appreciated, the update to Apple’s A5X chipset was even better. Announced on March 7, 2012, with the launch of the third generation iPad, the A5X was essentially a high performance variant of the A5 since it had twice the graphics power made possible by a quad-core graphics unit instead of the previous dual-core. It also had a quad-channel memory controller that provided about three times more memory bandwidth than the A5. But these additional graphics cores and memory channels meant the silicon process size increased to 45 nanometers. It would shrink back down to 32 nanometers a year later though with the Apple A6 in 2012. It launched with the iPhone 5 and featured twice the speed and graphics power compared to its predecessor. It was 22% smaller and used less power, which helped improve the iPhone’s battery life. The A6 was the first Apple chipset to use a custom Apple-designed CPU which was clocked at 1.3 GHz and used an ARMv7 based dual-core CPU, called Swift, rather than a licensed CPU from ARM like in previous designs. The next chipset update came later that year, near the end of 2012 and it was called the Apple A6X as you might’ve guessed. It was introduced with the fourth generation iPad and it had twice the CPU performance and up to twice the graphics performance of its predecessor. It continued to use the custom dual-core Swift CPU, but it had a new quad core GPU, quad channel memory and slightly higher 1.4 GHz CPU clock rate. About a year later the Apple A7 chipset made its appearance alongside the iPhone 5S, which was introduced in September, 2013. Again, the newly upgraded chipset was up to twice as fast and had up to twice the graphics power compared to its predecessor. Perhaps you’re beginning to see a pattern here. But something special about the A7 is that it was the first chipset to feature a 64-bit CPU instead of the usual 32-bit. This meant the processor could handle more data at once, making the device it powered much more capable. And another year brought with it another chipset upgrade, this time to the Apple A8 which debuted in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in 2014.

The A8 featured 25% more CPU performance and 50% more graphics performance than the A7, all while using half as much power. The A8 also had twice the amount of transistors as the A7 but was 13% smaller. And although this chipset was released in 2014, Apple used it in their 2018 HomePod, which says a lot about how capable and powerful this chipset really is. The Apple A8X was introduced with the iPad Air 2 near the end of 2014, and it had 40% more CPU performance and two and a half times the graphics performance of its predecessor. Unlike the A8, this chipset used a triple-core CPU, a new octa-core GPU, dual channel memory, and a slightly higher 1.5 GHz CPU clock rate. It was also manufactured by TSMC instead of Samsung and featured 3 billion transistors on a smaller 20 nanometer process. In 2015 the Apple A9 chipset was released with the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus and it achieved 70% more CPU performance and 90% more graphics performance compared to the A8. It was also the first of Apple’s chipsets to be manufactured by both Samsung and TSMC, and this caused some controversy. You see, users ran benchmark tests to compare performance of the Samsung chipset versus TSMC and found the Samsung chipset delivered much lower battery life. But Apple said these benchmark tests weren’t representative of real-world usage, so several tech sites conducted their own real-world tests and found the gap between Samsung and TSMC phones did indeed close. Now the following year TSMC served as Apple’s sole manufacturer of their A9X chipset. And this shift away from reliance on Samsung was likely due to the legal battle taking place between the two companies. The Apple A9X first appeared in the iPad Pro in 2015 and offered 80% more CPU performance and two times the GPU performance of the A8X. And in 2016 the Apple A10 Fusion chipset was introduced with the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. The reason why it was called “fusion” was because it had a new quad core design that fused together two high performance cores with two high efficiency cores. That way the device received extra power while under heavy workloads, but could save battery life when the additional processing power wasn’t needed. This fusion chipset was upgraded in 2017 and became Apple A10X Fusion. It first appeared in the 10.5" iPad Pro and had 30 percent faster CPU performance and 40 percent faster GPU performance than its predecessor. This was also the chipset used to power the 4K Apple TV released on September 12, 2017. And near the end of 2017 Apple introduced the A11 Bionic chipset which appeared in the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and iPhone X. It had two high-performance cores which were 25% faster and four high-efficiency cores which were 70% faster than the A10 Fusion chipset. So that’s where the A series stands today, and now let’s move on to the S series which are the chipsets used in the Apple Watch. They have a customized application processor that integrates memory, storage, wireless connectivity, sensors and I/O into a single package. And it all began with the first Apple Watch in 2014. Its single-core Apple S1 chipset may not have been the most powerful, but it was quite a feat of engineering to combine so many electronics into one package. 

Now the S series received its first power boost in 2016 with the Apple S1P and the Apple S2. Both chipsets were upgraded to dual-core processors which made them twice as powerful, but only the S2 variant featured a built-in GPS receiver. And finally, in 2017, the Apple S3 chipset was introduced with the Apple Watch Series 3. This upgrade featured a dual-core processor that was 70% faster than the S2 and had an optional cellular modem for LTE support. So that’s a rundown of the Apple Watch’s S series chipset, and that means we have two more left to cover: the W series and T series, both of which have two versions. So the W series was initially created for Apple’s AirPods, giving them stronger and faster bluetooth connectivity than its competition. But the second version in this series, the W2, was created for the Apple Watch Series 3. It gave the Apple Watch 50% more power efficient bluetooth and wifi as well as allowing for 85% faster wifi speeds. It’s hard to predict how Apple will use future versions of the W series chipsets since it is so versatile and can be integrated into almost any device. Now let’s talk about the T series. The Apple T1 was created as a driver for the Touch ID sensor in the MacBook Pros. It operated as a secure enclave for the processing and encryption of fingerprints as well protecting the microphone and FaceTime HD camera from being hacked. But the T2 chipset served as a secure enclave for the iMac Pro. It allowed for encrypted keys, the ability to lock down the computer's boot process, handled system functions like camera and audio control, managed the solid-state drive, and delivered "enhanced imaging processing" for the iMac Pro's FaceTime HD camera. Now you may have noticed that virtually every Apple product features a custom Apple-designed chipset, except for their Mac computers, but rumors suggest that may be changing. According to a Bloomberg report, Apple plans to replace Mac Intel chips with its own custom chipset as early as 2020. This move would make quite a bit of sense, Apple has been investing heavily in custom silicon since the original iPhone, and including their own chips in their own computers seems like a step in the right direction for Apple.Thanking for reading.