Apple may appear to be just a smartphone manufacturer on the surface, but in recent years, it has quietly established itself in the mobile processor industry. Especially with its CPUs: The A6 was the first to use Apple’s self-designed Swift architecture, and the A7 introduced the 64-bit ARMv8 Cyclone architecture. What new features will the A8 bring?
Unfortunately, if you were hoping for another revolution, you might be disappointed. Whether it's the CPU or GPU, the A8 is more of a steady upgrade rather than a major breakthrough.
New Technology, Memory
The biggest highlight of the A8, however, is actually its manufacturing process, which set several milestones:
It was one of the first mobile processors to adopt a 20nm process, marking a significant step forward. This also marked Apple’s first use of the most advanced semiconductor technology—moving away from the 28nm process that had been used over a year prior.
This was also the first time Apple chose non-Samsung manufacturers for production, specifically using TSMC’s foundry services. This shift not only reduced reliance on Samsung but also helped TSMC take over a large portion of its production capacity.
TSMC claims that the 20nm process can increase chip speed by 30% compared to 28nm, boost integration by 90%, or reduce power consumption by 25%. How these improvements translate into real-world performance remains to be seen. However, the number of transistors in the A8 has doubled, while the core area has shrunk by 13%.
The memory subsystem of the A8 remained largely unchanged, with only minor tweaks. The SRAM cache is still present, serving both the CPU and GPU as a three-level cache, with a total capacity of 4MB. The memory controller continues to support LPDDR3-1600.
Testing showed that the A8’s memory bandwidth is slightly higher than the A7, with an improvement of 2–9%, indicating further optimization.
More interestingly, the memory delay in the 1–4MB SRAM cache area and the 6+MB memory area has been reduced by about 20ns, although how this was achieved remains unclear.
In addition to the CPU, GPU, cache, and memory, the A8 also includes numerous other high-end function modules, such as audio controllers, USB controllers, video codecs, flash controllers, and camera ISPs. While the exact layout and functionality are not fully known, we do know that the A8 supports H.265 video encoding, though it will only be used for FaceTime calls.
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