The Apple A4 is Actually a Cortex A8-based SoC?

The Apple A4 chip used in the iPad may be a Cortex A8-based SoC rather then an out-of-order Cortex A9 as previously thought, according to an Ars Technica report.

As I watched the videos and read the reports of the iPad in action at the launch event, I was thoroughly convinced that the device was built on the out-of-order Cortex A9, possibly even a dual-core version. But it turns out that the the A4 is a 1GHz custom SoC with a single Cortex A8 core and a PowerVR SGX GPU. The fact that A4 uses a single A8 core hasn't been made public, but I've heard from multiple sources who are certain for different reasons that this is indeed the case. (I wish I could be more specific, but I can't.)

Ars believes that the A4 is comparable to other Cortex A8-based SoCs but with less hardware. The iPad doesn't require much I/O so Apple was able to do away with much of the I/O support on the typical A8 SoC. For instance, Apple could have done away with the infrared block, a few serial blocks, and few USB blocks.


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