The Apple A6 is a 32-bit package on package (PoP)

system on a chip A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memor ...

(SoC) designed by Apple Inc. that was introduced on September 12, 2012 at the launch of the

iPhone 5 The iPhone 5 is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the 6th generation iPhone, succeeding both the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, and preceding both the iPhone 5S and 5C. It was formally unveiled as part of a press ...

. Apple states that it is up to twice as fast and has up to twice the graphics power compared with its predecessor, the Apple A5. Software updates for devices using this chip ceased in 2019, with the release of iOS 10.3.4 on the iPhone 5 as it was discontinued with the release of

iOS 11 iOS 11 is the iOS version history, eleventh major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 10. It was announced at the company's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Worldwide Developers C ...

in 2017.

Design

The Apple A6 is said to use a 1.3 GHz custom Apple-designed ARMv7-A architecture based dual-core CPU, called Swift, rather than a licensed CPU from ARM like in previous designs, and an integrated 266 MHz triple-core PowerVR SGX543MP3

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, m ...

(GPU). The Swift core in the A6 uses a new tweaked instruction set featuring some elements of the

ARM Cortex-A15 The ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore is a 32-bit processor core licensed by ARM Holdings implementing the ARMv7-A architecture. It is a multicore processor with out-of-order superscalar pipeline running at up to 2.5 GHz. Overview ARM has claimed th ...

such as support for the Advanced SIMD v2, and VFPv4. Analysis suggests that the Swift core has a triple-wide frontend and two FPUs, compared with a two-wide core with a single FPU in the Cortex-A9 based predecessor. The A6 processor package also incorporates 1 GB of LPDDR2-1066 RAM compared with 512MB of LPDDR2-800 RAM in the Apple A5 providing double the memory capacity while increasing the theoretical memory bandwidth from 6.4 GB/s to 8.5 GB/s. The A6 includes an upgraded

image signal processor An image processor, also known as an image processing engine, image processing unit (IPU), or image signal processor (ISP), is a type of media processor or specialized digital signal processor (DSP) used for image processing, in digital cameras or ...

(ISP), that compared with the ISP in the A5, improves the speed of image capture, low-light performance, noise reduction, and video stabilization. The A6 is manufactured by Samsung on a high-κ metal gate (HKMG) 32 nm process and the chip is 96.71 mm² large, which is 22% smaller than the A5. The A6 also consumes less energy than its predecessor. A version of the A6 with higher frequency and four graphic cores is called Apple A6X and is found only in the fourth generation iPad.

Products that include the Apple A6

The Apple A6 chip is only used in iPhones, and not in

iPads The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...

nor any generation of

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a musi ...

, iPad minis, or Apple TVs. *

iPhone 5C The iPhone 5C (marketed as iPhone 5c) is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is part of the sixth generation of the iPhone. The device was unveiled on September 10, 2013, and released on September 20, 2013, alon ...

Gallery

References

{{Application ARM-based chips Products introduced in 2012 Products and services discontinued in 2017 Computer-related introductions in 2012 A6 ARM architecture 32-bit microprocessors Apple silicon

Design

Products that include the Apple A6

Gallery

See also

References