The Decade-Long Journey of Apple’s A-Series Processors: Can Domestic Chips Surpass Them?

A phone’s ability to attract consumers, apart from excellent design and stable systems, also needs to have a powerful enough processor!

Today, CJ will talk to you about

the decade-long evolution of Apple’s mobile processors

As an Apple user, how much do you know?

As we all know, Apple phones use

self-designed A-series processors

However, before the iPhone 4 generation

(iPhone 3GS and earlier models)

every generation of iPhone products

used third-party processors

Some were ARM, some were Samsung

for example, the iPhone 3GS used:

the Samsung S5PC100 processor based on the ARM Cortex-A8 architecture

This CPU has a clock speed of only667~833 MHz

The GPU isPowerVR SGX535

In today’s comparison,

its performance might not even match the Snapdragon 200…

But in that era dominated by Nokia phones,

its performance was already outstanding!

Let’s go back to the year the iPhone 4 was released

At that time, Apple started to break away from third-party processors

and launched its self-developed A4 processor

This was also the first time Apple used the A-series processor in the iPhone

The A4 is based on45nm process technology

with an ARM Cortex-A8 processor

The GPU is still PowerVR SGX 535

Compared to Samsung S5PC110, A4 removed some unnecessary components

and expandedL2 cache from 512KB to 640KB

Therefore,its performance is better than S5PC110 at the same frequency

The A4 processor thus became

the most powerful at that time,the “King of Single-Core”

Subsequently, the dual-core A5 processor on the iPhone 4s

was also an upgrade based on the A4

including the use of32nm Core ARM

Cortex-A9 dual-core architecture

The GPU was upgraded to 200MHz PowerVR SGX543 MP2

whichdoubled the computational performance

and increased the graphics performance by7 times compared to the previous A4

and also featured low power consumption

This CPU was widely used in

iPad 2, iPhone 4S,third-generation Apple TV

iPod touch 5, iPad mini

and was a legendary presence in mobile processors at that time

Fast forward to September 2013

This was a revolutionary year for mobile processors

It was a significant step for the entire mobile processor industry

because Apple released

the world’s first 64-bitA7 processor

marking the entry of mobile processors into the 64-bit era

The A7 is a groundbreaking CPU

At that time, Qualcomm, Samsung, and MediaTek’s processors

were still immersed in32-bit quad-core processors when

the release of the dual-core 64-bit A7

was a surprise to many Android manufacturers

The CPU part of the A7 is

self-developed 64-bit ARM v8 dual-core processor

the architecture did not fully adhere to ARM Cortex-A57

it can be said to bebased on a modified A57

The GPU was the newly released 6 series PowerVR G6430

itsgraphics processing performance reached console level

namely, PS3 and Xbox 360

In 2014,the “core” war broke out

MediaTek launched

the world’s first 4G LTE network-supported

true octa-core processorMT6595

And that year,

the newly graduated Kirin processor from Huawei

also launchedthe world’s first quad-core SoC – Kirin 910

(SoC does not only refer to CPU)

In May of the same year, its upgraded version – Kirin 910T was launched

In June, it released

the world’s first octa-core SoC supporting LTE Cat 6– Kirin 920

In September of the same year, it launched the flagship chip – Kirin 925

(Did Wei Ge eat something? So fierce!)

Huawei was very active in processors that year

and it was also that year

the Huawei Mate series succeededwith Mate7

By the way, the “Jazz Life” meme comes from here

And no longer able to endure the “core war” and64-bit screen-pressing Qualcomm

they also released a powerfulSnapdragon 810(overheating)

That year, Apple still stood outand released the dual-core A8 processor

Fortunately:

The A8 was the industry’s first chip to use20nm process technology, and was manufactured by TSMC

The CPU part is an improved version of the A7 dual-core

The GPU uses a four-core PowerVR GX6450

Overall,

The A8 is merely a slight upgrade over the A7 processor

Although it is a minor upgrade,

its performance is not weak

with a single-core score around 1600

which even matchesSnapdragon 660‘s level

In 2015, when quad-core and

octa-core processors were blooming everywhere

Apple still did not follow suit

and launchedthe strongest dual-core processor——A9

The A9 processor’s frequency reached 1.85GHz

The GPU is PowerVR GT7600, with 6 cores

Benchmark shows:single-core score up to 2500

comparable to Snapdragon 845

At the same time, the A9 also integratesM9 coprocessor

which is mainly responsible for sampling and processing data from the accelerometer

pressure sensor, etc.

and also responsible for recognizing Siri voice commands

Looking back at that year,

Apple, with itsdual-core A-series processors,

was a formidable force in mobile performance

Even now,

with quad-coreA10 and six-coreA11 andA12

in overall performance, they are unmatched by Android processors

not to mention theiOS system that perfectly utilizes CPU performance

After ten years in the market,

Apple’s iPhone sales worldwide

also surpassed1.2 billion units

Apple’s market value has soared

and the improvement in technology and product experience

is the fundamental guarantee!

Among them,the role of A-series processors is indispensable

Let’s look forward to Apple bringing us more new technologies

and better experience products in the future!