The Apple A7 is a 64-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. It first appeared in the

iPhone 5S The iPhone 5S (stylized and marketed as iPhone 5s) is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the seventh generation of the iPhone, succeeding the iPhone 5, and unveiled in September 2013, alongside the iPhone 5C. Th ...

, which was announced on September 10, 2013, and the iPad Air and iPad Mini 2, which were both announced on October 22, 2013. Apple states that it is up to twice as fast and has up to twice the graphics power compared to its predecessor, the Apple A6. It is the first 64-bit SoC to ship in a consumer smartphone or tablet computer. On March 21, 2017, the iPad mini 2 was discontinued, ending production of A7 chips. The latest software update for systems using this chip was iOS 12.5.6, released on August 31, 2022, as they were discontinued with the release of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 in 2019.

Design

The A7 features an Apple-designed 64-bit 1.3–1.4 GHz ARMv8-A dual-core CPU, called Cyclone. The 64-bit A64 instruction set in the ARMv8-A architecture doubles the number of registers of the A7 compared to the ARMv7 architecture used in A6. It has 31 general purpose registers that are each 64-bits wide and 32 floating-point/

NEON Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton ...

registers that are each 128-bits wide. The A7 also integrates a graphics processing unit (GPU) which

AnandTech ''AnandTech'' is an online computer hardware magazine owned by Future plc. It was founded in 1997 by then-14-year-old Anand Lal Shimpi, who served as CEO and editor-in-chief until August 30, 2014, with Ryan Smith replacing him as editor-in-chief ...

believes to be a PowerVR G6430 in a four cluster configuration. The A7 has a per-core

L1 cache A CPU cache is a hardware cache used by the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer to reduce the average cost (time or energy) to access data from the main memory. A cache is a smaller, faster memory, located closer to a processor core, which ...

of 64 KB for data and 64 KB for instructions, a L2 cache of 1 MB shared by both CPU cores, and a 4 MB L3 cache that services the entire SoC. The A7 includes a new image processor, a feature originally introduced in the A5, used for functionality related to the camera such as image stabilizing, color correction, and light balance. The A7 also includes an area called the "Secure Enclave" that stores and protects the data from the

Touch ID Touch ID is an electronic fingerprint recognition feature designed and released by Apple Inc. that allows users to unlock devices, make purchases in the various Apple digital media stores (iTunes Store, App Store, and Apple Books Store), and aut ...

fingerprint sensor on the

and iPad mini 3. It has been speculated that the security of the data in the Secure Enclave is enforced by ARM's

TrustZone ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configure ...

/ SecurCore technology. In a change from the Apple A6, the A7 SoC no longer services the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass. In order to reduce power consumption, this functionality has been moved to the new M7 motion

coprocessor A coprocessor is a computer processor used to supplement the functions of the primary processor (the CPU). Operations performed by the coprocessor may be floating-point arithmetic, graphics, signal processing, string processing, cryptography o ...

which appears to be a separate ARM-based microcontroller from

NXP Semiconductors NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXP) is a Dutch semiconductor designer and manufacturer with headquarters in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The company employs approximately 31,000 people in more than 30 countries. NXP reported revenue of $11.06 billion in 2 ...

Apple A7 (APL0698)

Apple uses the APL0698 variant of the A7 chip, running at 1.3 GHz, in the

, iPad Mini 2, and iPad Mini 3. This A7 is manufactured by Samsung on a high-κ metal gate (HKMG) 28 nm process and the chip includes over 1 billion transistors on a die 102 mm² in size. According to ABI Research the A7 drew 1100 mA during fixed point operations and 520 mA during floating point operations, while its predecessor, the A6 processor in the iPhone 5, drew 485 mA and 320 mA. Google/Motorola Mobility’s Moto X Outpaces Competition with New Innovations
, ABI Research It is manufactured in a package on package (PoP) together with 1 GB of

LPDDR3 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 ...

DRAM with a 64-bit wide memory interface onto the package.

Apple A7 (APL5698)

Apple uses the APL5698 variant of the A7 chip, running at 1.4 GHz, in the iPad Air. Its die is identical in size and layout to that of the first A7 and is manufactured by Samsung. However, unlike the first version of the A7, the A7 used in the iPad Air is not on a PoP, having no stacked RAM. Instead it uses a chip-on-board mounting, immediately adjacent DRAM, and is covered by a metallic heat spreader, similar to the Apple A5X and

A6X The Apple A6X is a 32-bit system-on-a-chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., introduced at the launch of the 4th generation iPad on October 23, 2012. It is a high-performance variant of the Apple A6 and the last 32-bit chip Apple used on an iOS de ...

Patent litigation

The A7's branch predictor was claimed to infringe on a 1998 patent. On October 14, 2015, a district judge found Apple guilty of infringing U.S. patent , "Table based data speculation circuit for parallel processing computer", on the Apple A7 and A8 processors. The patent is owned by Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), a firm affiliated with the University of Wisconsin. On July 24, 2017, Apple was ordered to pay WARF $506 million for patent infringement. Apple filed an appellate brief on October 26, 2017 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, that argued that Apple did not infringe on the patent owned by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. On September 28, 2018, the ruling was overturned on appeal and the award thrown out by the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The patent expired in December 2016.

Products that include the Apple A7

* iPad Air * iPad Mini 2 & Mini 3

Gallery

References

{{Application ARM-based chips Products introduced in 2013 Products and services discontinued in 2019 Computer-related introductions in 2013 A7 ARM architecture 64-bit microprocessors Apple silicon