The Apple A5X is a 32-bit

system on a chip A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...

(SoC) designed by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

and manufactured by

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

. Apple used it only in the third-generation iPad. The A5X is a high-performance variant of the

Apple A5 The Apple A5 is a 32-bit system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc. and manufactured by Samsung. The first product Apple featured an A5 in was the iPad 2. Apple claimed during their media event on March 2, 2011 that the ARM Cortex-A9 centra ...

. Apple claimed during their media event on March 7, 2012 that the quad-core PowerVR SGX543MP4

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...

(GPU) in the A5X is two times faster than the GPU in the A5, as the A5X GPU contains two more cores than the dual-core version GPU in the A5. The last operating system update Apple provided for a mobile device containing an A5X (third-generation iPad cellular models) was iOS 9.3.6, which was released on July 22, 2019 as it was discontinued with the release of

iOS 10 iOS 10 is the iOS version history, tenth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 9. It was announced at the company's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Worldwide Developers Conf ...

in 2016.

Design

Apple designed the A5X chip specifically for the third-generation iPad to provide the additional graphical performance it required for its new Retina display. The A5X chip features a dual-core 45 nm ARM Cortex-A9 CPU with a

clock rate In computing, the clock rate or clock speed typically refers to the frequency at which the clock generator of a processor can generate pulses, which are used to synchronize the operations of its components, and is used as an indicator of the pr ...

of 1

GHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

, and a quad-core 32 nm PowerVR SGX543MP4 GPU with a clock rate of 250 MHz. Compared to the A5, the memory interface of the A5X is twice the size. The A5X memory interface subsystem utilizes four 32 bits wide

LPDDR2 Low-Power Double Data Rate (LPDDR), also known as LPDDR SDRAM, is a type of synchronous dynamic random-access memory that consumes less power and is targeted for mobile computers and devices such as mobile phones. Older variants are also known a ...

memory controllers. Unlike the

Apple A4 The Apple A4 is a 32-bit package on package (PoP) system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc. and manufactured by Samsung. It was the first SoC Apple designed in-house. The first product to feature the A4 was the first-generation iPad, follo ...

and the A5, the A5X uses a metal

heat spreader A heat spreader transfers energy as heat from a hotter source to a colder heat sink or heat exchanger. There are two thermodynamic types, passive and active. The most common sort of passive heat spreader is a plate or block of material having hi ...

(along with thermal paste) to cover the flip chip underneath. The die takes up 162.94 mm² of area—a 36.5% increase in area used over the 119.32 mm² die of the S5L8940 version of the A5. The A5X does not use the

package on package Package on a package (PoP) is an integrated circuit packaging method to vertically combine discrete logic and memory ball grid array (BGA) packages. Two or more packages are installed atop each other, i.e. stacked, with a standard interface to rout ...

(PoP) method of installation to support RAM—RAM is found externally from the A5X chip.

Products featuring the Apple A5X

iPad (3rd generation) The iPad (3rd generation) (marketed as The new iPad, colloquially referred to as the iPad 3) is a tablet computer, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. The third device in the iPad line of tablets, it added a Retina Display, the new Apple A5X ...

References

{{Application ARM-based chips Computer-related introductions in 2012 Apple silicon

Design

Products featuring the Apple A5X

See also

References