The iPhone 5 A6 SoC Uses a Custom Apple Core

Rather than using a CPU core based on a vanilla A9 or A15 design from ARM, Apple is using a custom core for the new A6 SoC found in the iPhone 5, reports AnandTech.

The site has confirmed with its sources that the A6 SoC is based on Apple's own ARM based CPU core and not the Cortex A15.

The bad news is I have no details on the design of Apple's custom core. Despite Apple's willingness to spend on die area, I believe an A15/Krait class CPU core is a likely target. Slightly wider front end, more execution resources, more flexible OoO execution engine, deeper buffers, bigger windows, etc... Support for VFPv4 guarantees a bigger core size than the Cortex A9, it only makes sense that Apple would push the envelope everywhere else as well. I'm particularly interested in frequency targets and whether there's any clever dynamic clock work happening. Someone needs to run Geekbench on an iPhone 5 pronto.


This a considered a somewhat risky step for Apple as ARM's design are tested and proven across numerous devices and platforms. However, the potential for payoff is higher.

Based on information provided by Apple the site believes that the iPhone 5 uses a marginally higher clocked PowerVR SGX 543MP3 for graphics.

A much more in depth analysis can be found at the link below...

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