Next-Gen iPhone & iPhone Nano Speculation

[ltcommander.data]

IIRC, they didn't note the A9 cores either when they first moved to it.

Odd that they're so opaque about the SOC. They cited sRGB and they'll mention all the tech specs of the camera sensor.

Maybe they feel the display and camera are more user facing components. Most consumers aren't going to understand what those specs mean, but they are going to experience/utilize them (see the wider gamut display, the change in focal length, etc.) so it's worthwhile to point out the specific details. Specific SoC specs are more important to and more directly utilized by developers, who may code differently to take advantage of the new VFP for example, whereas all users need to know is the general specs that the end result is their apps can run 2x faster or there is more power available for more complex graphics.

 

[anexanhume]

Or could it be the A15 and A7? Isn't that what big.little is suppose to be?

A7 is too new to be in any IP.

Seems unlikely to be big.LITTLE if you assume they'd make more of a splash about something as architecturally advantageous as that. Then again, I'd have assumed they'd make a splash about not using A9 regardless.

Brian Klug says you're bang on: https://twitter.com/nerdtalker/statuses/246796538104410112

 

[Exophase]

Guess that mostly settles it. Let's hope that the performance figures are due to Apple clocking the CPU a lot lower than the 1.5-2GHz we've been led to expect in upcoming SoCs, and not due to the IPC improvement being far below the expected. If it were anyone other than Apple releasing this I'd be concerned, but they have a history of low clock speeds in phones.

 

[Steven Lin]

XCode 4.5 will now default build binary with armv7/armv7s architecture which means they have a new cpu core other than Cortex A9.

armv7 ==>Cortex A8, Cortex A9
armv7f ==>Cortex A9MP
armv7s ==> Cortex A15.

 

[Ailuros]

Actually it's a very wild guess but I'd even prefer a custom designed "next generation" CPU than A15.

 

[ltcommander.data]

Actually it's a very wild guess but I'd even prefer a custom designed "next generation" CPU than A15.

Given how they like to trumpet the "uniquely Apple" angle, if they really designed their own custom ARMv7 CPU you'd think they would definitely have talked about it at the keynote. Even if it doesn't result in the fastest CPU they could have played up the power efficiency and perhaps area efficiency aspects of such a custom CPU architecture, which would probably be their design goal anyways.

 

[Exophase]

The way Apple has presented A4, A5, and A6 they already make it sound like they designed the whole thing.. saying they just now did would show they hadn't before.

 

[Pressure]

The way Apple has presented A4, A5, and A6 they already make it sound like they designed the whole thing.. saying they just now did would show they hadn't before.

Well, they did pretty much design them in-house.

Remember all the companies they have absorbed during the years who specializes in custom ARM implementations, P.A. semi and Intrinsity (they helped ATI with their FastCore expertise to speed up their Radeon line of graphic chips) comes to mind.

The Hummingbird based on Cortex-A8 was even made by Intrinsity, commissioned by Samsung, probably for Apple. At least that is the current rumors.

 

[french toast]

Well I'm surprised if it is really cortex a15... as someone said above that means we could well be looking at dual a15 @ 800mhz sgx 554mp2 @ 200mhz? Lpdd2 1066..or possibly even lpddr3??..

That combined with faster IO and improved software could eek out the numbers they have said..including improved batterylife.

 

[aaronspink]

Well I'm surprised if it is really cortex a15... as someone said above that means we could well be looking at dual a15 @ 800mhz sgx 554mp2 @ 200mhz? Lpdd2 1066..or possibly even lpddr3??..

That combined with faster IO and improved software could eek out the numbers they have said..including improved batterylife.

latest GPU rumor is 54xmp3, fwiw. And it is unlikely that the IPC of the A15 is going to be 2x better than A9. So realistically we are probably looking at an A15 in the 1-1.2 Ghz range.

 

[french toast]

latest GPU rumor is 54xmp3, fwiw. And it is unlikely that the IPC of the A15 is going to be 2x better than A9. So realistically we are probably looking at an A15 in the 1-1.2 Ghz range.

Mp3..ok then but would have thought they would have used a newer variant if they are redesigning the SOC instead of just a simple shrink.

Yes bu t also as stated above is specifically mention apps opening speed...which could well be faster IO combined with improved Ipc of around 50%...

 

[Rys]

Technically 543MP3 would still be a new core. Lots of common infrastructure and potentially less validation for any customer using another 543MPx variant but still new.

I think (don't quote me) that 543MP3 is smaller than 554MP2, plus there's a fillrate advantage to MP3.

 

[french toast]

Technically 543MP3 would still be a new core. Lots of common infrastructure and potentially less validation for any customer using another 543MPx variant but still new.

I think (don't quote me) that 543MP3 is smaller than 554MP2, plus there's a fillrate advantage to MP3.

Thanks rys...what about over all performance...flops triangles power consumption etc... would you get away with a lower clocked mp3 which is higher performant and more efficient?

 

[anexanhume]

latest GPU rumor is 54xmp3, fwiw. And it is unlikely that the IPC of the A15 is going to be 2x better than A9. So realistically we are probably looking at an A15 in the 1-1.2 Ghz range.

1.2 gives you 2.1x if you assume 1.4x IPC from ARM.

As for why they didn't design a newer core in, it simply means Rogue wasn't ready yet. A6X (for iPad) or A7 then.

 

[french toast]

Just had a thought...apple did say cpu specifically 2x...so they would have to have some numbers to back that number up on the cpu alone...ipc of a15 is around 50% better integer wise...and I definitely think we are looking at another 800mhz cpu..

The only metric that would likely double in that scenario would be floating point performance..that would justify the 2x cpu claim, the faster IO, bandwidth and software/memory management would make up the rest to app loading speed near 2x...just my take.

 

[Rys]

Thanks rys...what about over all performance...flops triangles power consumption etc... would you get away with a lower clocked mp3 which is higher performant and more efficient?

It all depends how Apple want to tune the hardware to match the display resolution, given an expected kind of content. 554 makes a lot more sense when you want to encourage shader-heavy stuff.

Performance per pixel in iPhone 5 is higher than anything else on the market.

 

[aaronspink]

1.2 gives you 2.1x if you assume 1.4x IPC from ARM.

Which is pretty in line with past architecture when moving from something the level of an A9 to an A15. IIRC, P5-P6 was in that range as was EV5->EV6.

 

[aaronspink]

Mp3..ok then but would have thought they would have used a newer variant if they are redesigning the SOC instead of just a simple shrink.

The question is really one of what benefit would they get from going to a more feature heavy GPU core. They are already very familiar with the power/performance of the 54x core and at this point it probably makes more sense to do the step function transition with the rogue core when that is available rather than now, esp if they did the step function in the CPU with this chip. Doing it both the CPU and GPU at the same time requires a lot of work.

 

[wco81]

They already have class-leading GPU and it's not clear what that buys you.

Sure there are 3D games with "console-quality" graphics. But it's not likely that these kind of games will have big sales on iOS, as a category. There may be a few here and there that sell 5-10 million downloads at say $10 each. (and the returns on such games may be pretty comparable to console hits, given lower distribution costs).

Maybe the graphics performance will be used in a lot of things people take for granted -- smooth scrolling, animations and transitions, etc. Or things like the Flyover in the iOS 6 version of Maps, which won't have access to the data set that Google Maps does, but will be prettier.

Even if they don't want to tout performance or the specifics of the SOC, Apple can't avoid continuing to push the envelope, as far as performance goes.

 

[silent_guy]

Well, they did pretty much design them in-house.

Remember all the companies they have absorbed during the years who specializes in custom ARM implementations, P.A. semi and Intrinsity (they helped ATI with their FastCore expertise to speed up their Radeon line of graphic chips) comes to mind.

The Hummingbird based on Cortex-A8 was even made by Intrinsity, commissioned by Samsung, probably for Apple. At least that is the current rumors.

No, they didn't. They're pretty much plain vanilla ARM cores. (At least the ones before the A6. Haven't picked up anything about the A6 yet.)