
According to a rumor from the Chinese microblogging site, Weibo, Apple’s next-gen mobile processor may be called the A10 and may be moving towards a six-core architecture. The chip could potentially be manufactured using either a 10- or 14-nanometer process with both Samsung and TSMC competing for the orders. If Apple decides to go the 14-nanometer route, Intel may also compete to be one of the suppliers.
The source previously made accurate predictions about the A9 processor that was used in Apple devices launching this fall. That being said, a switch to six cores may be unlikely for several reasons. The A9 is a dual-core chip that makes use of proprietary, 64-bit technology to match or surpass third-party options like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series. Generally speaking, Apple tends to stick to a dual-core design despite other processors upgrading to quad-, hexa-, or even octocore layouts. If Apple does lean towards adding more cores to its CPU, jumping from two to four would be the most logical step for the company to take.
If Apple did decide to go that route, it would probably come at the expense of battery life which is something that Apple has been struggling with for years. The company even went as far as waiting until the iPad Air 2 to begin upgrading mobile devices to 2 GB of RAM for similar reasons. The source suggested that Apple may be interested in looking into multithreading, which could help improve efficiency when handling several tasks at once.
We’ll have to see if this does turn out to be true by waiting patiently.
Source: Weibo
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