Chipworks reveals some interesting details on Apple TV A5

Last month, Apple unveiled its third-generation Apple TV alongside its new iPad. The set top box received a handful of updates, including the ability to stream full 1080p content courtesy of its all-new A5 processor.

While Apple claims that the ATV’s A5 is only a single core unit, the folks over at Chipworks have a different opinion. According to their findings, the chip actually has two cores and is 41% smaller than previous A5s…

“Either Apple is only utilizing one core or they are binning parts. parts binning is a common process in semiconductors where devices are segregated (binned) based on meeting a subset of the overall requirements, in this case they could disable the “bad” core, this increases the usable die per wafer, lowering the cost.”

The discovery is important for a number of reasons. For starters, it means lower supply costs for Apple and improved power efficiency and performance for its devices.

But perhaps even more important, is that Chipworks believes that this new type of A5 chip may give us a peek into Apple’s future processors. Remember earlier this week, 9to5Mac reported that Apple was working on a variant of the A5X processor for its next-generation iPhone.

[9to5Mac]