Though the Apple iPad and the Samsung Wave most assuredly
share the same brain,
EE Times would like you to know there's more to a chip than its core -- analyzing Apple's system-on-a-chip designs in detail back to early iPhones, the publication noticed that Cupertino's silicon
both has custom design quirks
on top of ARM and shows heavy influence from Samsung as well.
EE Times claims that while the A4 and Samsung S5PC110 are similar, there are certainly differences, enough to call the A4 a custom design. Essentially, Apple has a taken a one-size-fits-all product originally engineered to meet the needs of a broad range of OEMs and reduced its complexity, footprint, and cost to match Apple's particular goals. As far as whether
PA Semi or
Intrinsity had a hand in that design, the authors suggest only the latter seems very involved. What all this means for intellectual property questions is anyone's guess -- we'll let the lawyers fight that one out -- but when you encounter diehard fans that claim one's ripping off the other, at least now you'll be able to calmly explain the situation. Find the deep technical dive at our source link.
posted June 18th 2010 1:53AM
But I think Samsung makes A4 for Apple as well. I wonder who copied who lol.
@kyphem Yeah I really want to see this "Hummingbird" processor in the works.
Snapdragon's Adreno GPU is apparently not that strong. =/
It sucks cause I was expecting to do heavy gaming on my Evo.
@Kedar This will definitely be a good year.
At the rate things are going, were going to have 2Ghz cell phones by the end of 2010
@uckApple keep dreaming. Everyone is focust on Apple so if they don't release 2GHZ nobody will. Even if the technology is there.
@kyphem Correct me if I'm wrong, but the first 1Ghz phone was anyone but Apple. The first 1.5Ghz phone will most likely be made by HTC or Motorola.
@liquidkernel I would like to correct you on that, No apple did not release the 1st 1ghz phone, infact it still didnt release it yet since its first 1ghz phone is set to be released on the 24th of june and that would be the iphone 4, Iphone 3gs had a 600mhz cpu...set your facts right,
LG had the first 1ghz device and it was called "eXpo" http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/first-1ghz-snapdragon-wm-device-in-us-comes-as-at-ts-200-lg-expo/2744
@uckApple
Fat chance. Most mobile phone chip makers roadmap shows only 1.2ghz by the end of the year and dual cores at 1ghz+ by next year. These road maps are for products years in the future. The chance they are going to make a 2ghz product out of nowhere is not logical. Just cause Motorola's CEO really wants one doesn't mean it's going to happen.
@jalal20 actually, Toshiba had the first 1ghz phone. The TG0.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/03/toshiba-tg01-with-4-1-inch-wvga-touchscreen-a-worlds-first-sna/
@jspeed04 dammit TG01
@kyphem
Every one copies every one
@kyphem
Nobody copied. Intrinsity designed A4 and then sold it to Samsung for $55 million. Samsung used the design to manufacture both A4 for Apple and S4PC110. Apple bought Intrinsity for $110 million.
Now? Apple designed A4, but Samsung also has the right to use it because they bought the design from Apple (former Intrinsity). This is the reason why both chips look similar, Apple can say they designed A4, and Samsung can say they manufacture their own S5.
@kyphem The title wuz all lyk
"zomg rly?"
@Cy Starkman
Hhahahahha... that's why we have a patent system, Einstein
*smacks Starkman upside the head
@kyphem so in inversion of the argument: foxconn can build now its own iphone 4 or dell xyz products?
after my logic, the owner of the chip design is the holder of rights, and not the assembler :)
@Kedar You sure can do heavy gaming in EVO as long as you keep it connected to charging cable LOL.
@Kedar Yea. SnapDragon processor is pretty overrated. Samsung's Hummingbird and Texas Instruments' OMAP processors blow it away.
@Kedar
I haven't tried any 3D gaming on my Evo yet, but I have seen demos and they look fantastic, smooth, and enjoyable. So what is your beef with Evo's GPU?
@Ecoteric
It's not that the EVO's GPU is weak, per se, but it is certainly underpowered compared to a phone like the Galaxy or the iPhone 4.
Even last year's 3GS has better 3D performance than Snapdragon powered phones.
@Kedar
It's not in the works, it's been out for almost a year to OEMs, and it's being used on the Samsung Wave right now.
@kyphem
A4 and S5, eh? I wonder if the high-ups in these companies drive Audis. :)
@Kedar What can you expect with the dev team shuffled from ATI to AMD to Qualcomm? By this time, the original Bitboys team is dead. In comparison, PowerVR has been stabling dev'ing, so their GPUs are much more mature and powerful.
@psychoace Right. Motorola's CEO must be from the Pentium4 era where MHz was PR hot-air king. First, depends on ARM coming out with a 2GHz design, and I doubt there's one. Also, what he wants is desktop speeds w ARM power-envelope, and if that was possible Intel would've already done it. Last, there's little need for 2GHz unless mobile phone dev continues to push away from native development and optimized coding.
But where's Waldo?
iPhone 4 is an amazing piece of technology rivaling the space shuttle and the nuclear bomb. All Americans should be proud that such a device was engineered in our country. iPhone 4 changes everything... again, is magical, and "just works".
@Juan007 I can't tell if you were being facetious or not... but in either case, LOL.
@Juan007 does apple pay you per sentance or per character?
@Juan007
It truly is amazing to see that only a few years ago, people were using"flip" phones, with absolutely no apps and a very very lame Internet browser.
Thank you Htc, thank you apple, for making the devices that you made :)
@uckApple Agreed. If it weren't for Apple, I doubt we'd have the advancements we have today. HTC really stepped up to the plate and built some amazing devices, forcing Apple to work harder and develop something great. Competition breeds amazing products; it's simple as that.
@Juan007
So, the iphone 4 is made of more than a million parts and can unleash hell on earth? I've got to get me one of these things!
@Bahumbug It already has released hell on earth. Just take a look at AT&T and Apple's servers when everyone tried to preorder one...
@liquidkernel
Actually before the iPhone we had.. um... WIn6.5.. so give Apple all the credit.. .if it was up to HTC, they'd be sittin on a WinMo6.6 update still.
Dear HTC, Enjoy the Lawsuit b*tches... Don't worry, SJ promises to use the lube this time.
The space baby did it.
Same chips are different...
@MattsZ Yeah, I don't even know what the hell the point of that article was. In 4 pages, the only hard fact they put up for comparison was that the package sizes were different and even that, they said, was attributed to the fact that Apple uses a 45nm fab process. Other than that, they espoused some vague references to a couple of blocks here and there that are missing in Apple's A4. Basically that tells me that Apple didn't do shit and simply highlighted parts of the design and Ctrl-X'ed them to save materials and power. Of course then, this is a legitimate case for Steve Jobs to describe this as Apple's design because we all know that in life, you can take something that already exists and as long as you make even the simplest of changes, you can call the resultant product your own. Go ahead, take somebody else's report, delete and rearrange a few paragraphs and hand it in as your own. It'll work!
@NikAmi Good point, but the key is that they're that committed to the power/performance/battery life problem that they are willing to study the chip and make the cuts as needed. That's efficiency. There's only one other company in the world that's vertically integrated enough to make such choices, and that's Samsung. Since their chip fab/design shop is separate from their phone business, it'll be interesting to see if they can make such a choice. It could result in better performing phones across the industry. Right now smart phones are like desktop replacement laptops, running inefficiently with battery almost as an afterthought. Eventually that'll mature and become more elegant and practical to boot.
@MattsZ
Useless article is useless.
Guess what - open up a TI OMAP 3430 as in the Droid and N900 and you'll find the same CPU core too. Or in a Freescale or any other Cortex A8 chip.
But, as the original article concludes (which seems to have been ignored by most blogs), EVERY other part of the A4 is totally different from the Samsung one. Graphics, video, audio, memory, power, security. Everything.
Here's the actual picture of the two chips side by side....
http://i50.tinypic.com/29zo7cy.png
I don't think you need to be an expert to spot that they are substantially different.
What I want to see is how A4 handles the battery compared to the Samsung's chip. Is there any way to test the power consumption of both chips?
It should still make a point that Apple did NOT design the A4 chip from scratch. It wants the public to believe it was made from the ground up by Apple. It's built from the ground up as much as OS X is written entirely from scratch (reference to that it's BSD).
IOW, the Apple chip manufactured by Samsung is basically the same as the Samsung branded chip, but Billy Mays died before he had an opportunity to hype it anywhere close to the magical game changing never done before amazing level that Steve Jobs can.
@Ducman69 Billy Mays will be missed. Imagine the infomercial for Samsung's chip with Billy Mays doing the pitching!
Yeah that Cortex A8 I mean... Apple A4 in the ipad is pretty good.
they are the same... but not the same.
If we are comparing Audis however, Samsung's is much better...
We dont need an increase in CPU freqs - we need GPUs more compatible with ARM. The nice chips from PowerVR are high voltage but powerful, so energy conservation tech is essential.
But i see no reason for PHONES TO MERGE WITH SOLAR PANELS!
You know just small ones on be back.
I'm not going to argue about who copied what, but I expect a vastly improved A4 or "A5" next year. If you remember, the first iPad teardown had a chip that was manufactured in September 2009, in over a years time, there is a ton of progress to be made.
Intrinsity designed A4 and then sold the design to Samsung for $55,000,000. Samsung also used it to manufacture their S5PC110. Apple bought Intrinsity for $110,000,000.
@arnoldphone
The important thing is Samsung doesn't know the inside of A4.
@arnoldphone
Samsung fab the A4 for Apple.. so I really hope they do know what an A4 looks like.
@arnoldphone Sounds like Samsung could've just bought Intrinsity and beat Apple to it. Of course, Samsung doesn't make those kinds of purchases.
@arnoldphone
Samsung payed 55 mil the soc, i am guessing that @ Samsung they are scratching there head why the hell they didn't bought Intrinsity for double the amount all together? This way they would have given the (especially Apple) a run for there money!