Chipworks Disassembles Apple's A8 SoC: GX6450, 4MB L3 Cache & More

Stefan Mileschin · 24th September 2014, 07:34

One of the more enjoyable rituals with Apple’s annual iPhone launch is the decapping, deconstruction, and photographing of the processor die at the heart of Apple’s newest SoC. While we can learn a lot about the SoC from software, for some things there’s just no replacement for looking at the hardware itself and counting the functional blocks present. And this year, as in past years, the honor of being the first to tear apart the SoC goes to Chipworks.

For determining the layout of A8, Chipworks reached out to us to solicit our input on their die shot, and after some rounds of going back and forth we believe we’ve come to a solid determination of some of A8’s features and how it has been configured. So let's dive in.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8562/chipworks-a8

24th September 2014, 07:34	#1
Stefan Mileschin [M] Reviewer Join Date: May 2010 Location: Romania Posts: 148,500	Chipworks Disassembles Apple's A8 SoC: GX6450, 4MB L3 Cache & More One of the more enjoyable rituals with Apple’s annual iPhone launch is the decapping, deconstruction, and photographing of the processor die at the heart of Apple’s newest SoC. While we can learn a lot about the SoC from software, for some things there’s just no replacement for looking at the hardware itself and counting the functional blocks present. And this year, as in past years, the honor of being the first to tear apart the SoC goes to Chipworks. For determining the layout of A8, Chipworks reached out to us to solicit our input on their die shot, and after some rounds of going back and forth we believe we’ve come to a solid determination of some of A8’s features and how it has been configured. So let's dive in. http://www.anandtech.com/show/8562/chipworks-a8

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