The Apple A10X Fusion is a

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing units (CPU) and arithmetic logic units (ALU) are those that are based on processor registers, a ...

ARM-based

system on a chip A system on a chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines most or all key components of a computer or Electronics, electronic system onto a single microchip. Typically, an SoC includes a central processing unit (CPU) with computer memory, ...

(SoC) designed by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

, part of the

Apple silicon Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture family, ARM architecture. They are used in nearly all of the company's devices including Mac ...

series, and manufactured by

TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC or Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is one of the world's most valuable semiconductor companies, the world' ...

. It first appeared in the 10.5"

iPad Pro The iPad Pro is a series of tablet computers, positioned as the premium line of Apple Inc., Apple's iPad brand. It runs iPadOS, a tablet-optimized Fork (software development), fork of the iOS operating system. Early models were distinguished f ...

and the second-generation 12.9" iPad Pro which were both announced on June 5, 2017. It was also used in the Apple TV 4K (first generation). The A10X is a variant of the A10 and Apple claims that it has 30 percent faster CPU performance and 40 percent faster GPU performance than its predecessor, the A9X.

Design

The A10X features an Apple-designed 64-bit 2.38 GHz ARMv8-A six-core CPU, with three high-performance Hurricane cores and three energy-efficient Zephyr cores. The A10X also integrates a twelve-core

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

(GPU) which appears to be the same Apple customized

Imagination Imagination is the production of sensations, feelings and thoughts informing oneself. These experiences can be re-creations of past experiences, such as vivid memories with imagined changes, or completely invented and possibly fantastic scenes ...

PowerVR PowerVR is a division of Imagination Technologies (formerly VideoLogic) that develops hardware and software for 2D and 3D rendering, and for video encoding, video decoding, decoding, associated image processing and DirectX, OpenGL ES, OpenVG, and ...

cores used in the A10. Embedded in the A10X is the M10 motion coprocessor. Built on TSMC's 10 nm

FinFET A fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) is a multigate device, a MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) built on a substrate where the gate is placed on two, three, or four sides of the channel or wrapped around the chann ...

process with a die size of 96.4mm², the A10X is 34% smaller than the A9X and was the smallest iPad SoC upon its release. The A10X is the first TSMC 10nm chip to be used by a consumer device. The A10X is paired with 4 GB of

LPDDR4 Low-Power Double Data Rate (LPDDR), also known as LPDDR SDRAM, is a type of synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) that consumes less power than other random access memory designs and is thus targeted for mobile computing devices such ...

memory in the second-generation 12.9" iPad Pro and the 10.5" iPad Pro, and 3 GB in the Apple TV 4K. The A10X has video codec encoding support for H.264. It has decoding support for

HEVC High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In co ...

, H.264,

MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related ...

, and

Motion JPEG Motion JPEG (M-JPEG or MJPEG) is a video compression format in which each video frame or interlaced field of a digital video sequence is compressed separately as a JPEG image. Originally developed for multimedia PC applications, Motion JPEG e ...

Products that include the Apple A10X

* iPad Pro 10.5-inch (2017) * iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2nd generation, 2017) * Apple TV 4K (first generation, 2017)

References

{{Application ARM-based chips Computer-related introductions in 2017 Apple silicon

Design

Products that include the Apple A10X

See also

References