iPhone 5 A6 Processor is a Unique SoC

While most phone companies would make use of third-party or generic products when it comes to processors, the same cannot be said about the iPhone 5 new A6 processor. This is because it was said that the A6 processor was one that was designed by Apple themselves. In fact, it took as much as a billion dollars along with hard work since 2008 to make the A6 processor.

The A6 processor was said to start its development in 2008 when Steve Jobs had purchased a processor design company called P.A. Semi. Its focus might be on performance but where it would succeed better is the low power consumption that the chip is famous for. This is because when you compare the iPhone 5 A6 processor with Samsung’s Exynos chip or the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, the A6 might not have as much raw performance. But then again, the good optimization of the operating system itself made the processor sufficient to be used on the iPhone.

To compare its architecture with any of the current processor architectures such as the Cortex A9 or even the Cortex A15 is not possible. This is because the A6 has been tailored by Apple with their own specifications.