In the last 24 hrs our lab guys have torn down the iPad 2 and come to the conclusion that the main innovation is the A5 chip. Flash memory is flash memory, the DRAM in the A5 package is 512 MB instead of 256 MB, and the touchscreen control uses the same trio of chips as the iPad 1 – not even a single chip solution as we’ve seen in the later iPhones. And the 3G version uses the same chipset as the Verizon iPhone launched a few weeks ago.
So after the press speculation that TSMC might be fabbing the A5 rather than Samsung, we had to take a look, and the quickest way is to do a cross-section and compare it with the A4 from last year’s iPad.
So here’s the A5:
SEM Cross-Section of Apple A5
It’s a nine-metal layer part, with eight levels of copper and one aluminum. Zooming into the transistor level:
SEM Cross-Section of Transistors and M1 in A5 Processor
And now the A4:
SEM Cross-Section of A4 Chip
At this scale even electron microscopes start to run out of steam, so not the clearest of images in either case, but good enough to see the similar shape of the transistor gates and the dielectric layers. So at least this sample of the A5 is fabbed by Samsung, just as all Apple’s processor chips have been for the last while.
Stay tuned for more details of the iPad 2!
