According to a new report, Apple has tapped Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (or TSMC) to start manufacturing its A6X chip, which it introduced in its 4th gen iPad, with trials expected to begin as early as this quarter.
The move has been a hot topic in the media for several months now, as it will help Apple further reduce its reliance on Samsung. Tensions continue to grow between the two companies, who are involved in patent suits around the globe...
Apple introduced the new A6X with the fourth-generation iPad on October 23. It's an improved version of the A6 silicon powering the iPhone 5 by increasing clock frequency for the CPU (1.5GHz) and GPU (500MHz) part in order to achieve Apple's claim of twice the CPU and GPU performance.
Though the A6X still runs two ARM Cortex-A15 cores with a heavily customized, Apple's own ARMv7 based processor design (called Swift), the company has improved graphics performance compared to the A6's three PowerVR-based GPU cores by moving to a newer GPU core: the PowerVR SGX 554 from UK's fabless semiconductor maker Imagination Technologies, where Apple has an ownership stake...
We think it's safe to say that the upcoming iPad 4th generation release will be a beast of a machine. In fact, the 4th generation iPad more than doubles the overall Geekbench benchmark score of the iPad 2. It also more than doubles the score of the incumbent iPad 3.
Whereas many complained about the iPad 3's relative lack of processing power when compared to the iPad 2 (in some cases, the iPad 2 outperformed the New iPad due to the strain placed on it by the Retina Display), you will not have that problem with the latest iPad iteration.
As Primate Labs points out, some of the first Geekbench scores are beginning to make themselves available online, and it paints a telling picture about the horsepower inside the iPad 4's inconspicuous casing...