 Apple A8X chip | |
| General information | |
|---|---|
| Launched | October 16, 2014 |
| Discontinued | March 21, 2017 |
| Designed by | Apple Inc. |
| Common manufacturer | |
| Product code | APL1012[2] |
| Performance | |
| Max.CPUclock rate | 1.5[3] GHz |
| Cache | |
| L1cache | Per core: 64 KB instruction + 64 KB data[3] |
| L2 cache | 2 MB shared[3] |
| L3 cache | 4 MB[4] |
| Architecture and classification | |
| Application | Mobile |
| Technology node | 20 nm[1] |
| Microarchitecture | Typhoon[5] |
| Instruction set | ARMv8-A:A64,A32,T32 |
| Physical specifications | |
| Cores |
|
| GPU | PowerVR Series6XT GXA6850 (8 cores)[4][6] |
| Products, models, variants | |
| Variant | |
| History | |
| Predecessor | Apple A7 |
| Successors | Apple A9 (iPad 5) Apple A9X (iPad Pro) |
TheApple A8X is a64-bitARM-basedsystem on a chip (SoC) designed byApple Inc., part of theApple silicon series, and manufactured byTSMC.[1] It was introduced with and only used in theiPad Air 2, which was announced on October 16, 2014.[7] It is a variant of theA8 inside the iPhone 6 family ofsmartphones and Apple states that it has 40% more CPU performance and 2.5 times the graphics performance of its predecessor, theApple A7.[7][8] The latest software update for the iPad Air 2 using this chip isiPadOS 15.8.3, released on March 5, 2024, as it was discontinued with the release ofiPadOS 16 in 2022 due to hardware limitations of the A8X.
The A8X has three cores clocked at 1.5 GHz, a more powerful GPU compared to the A8 and it contains 3 billion transistors.[8] With an extra 100 MHz and an additional core, the A8X performs around 13% better on single threaded and 55% better on multithreaded operations than the A8 inside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.[3]
Further comparison to the A8 shows that the A8X uses a metalheat spreader, which the A8 does not, and it doesn't use thepackage on package configuration with includedRAM which the A8 does. This is similar to how the older"X" variants, theA5X andA6X, were designed.[9] Instead the A8X in the iPad Air 2 uses an external 2 GB RAM module.[3][9]
In a first for Apple, the A8X is reported to have a semi-custom GPU. The A8X uses an 8-cluster GPU based onImagination TechnologiesPowerVR Series 6XT architecture. Officially, the largest implementation of Rogue is a 6-cluster design, indicating that Apple has made customizations to the design in order to provide higher performance. This GPU is referred to as the GXA6850, with the "A" denoting the Apple customization.[10]
The A8X has video codec encoding support forH.264. It has decoding support for H.264,MPEG‑4, andMotion JPEG.[11]
The A8X'sbranch predictor has been claimed to infringe on a 1998 patent.[12][13] On October 14, 2015, a district judge found Apple guilty of infringing U.S. patentUS 5781752 , "Table based data speculation circuit for parallel processing computer", on the Apple A7 and A8 processors.[13] The patent is owned byWisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), a firm affiliated with theUniversity of Wisconsin. On July 24, 2017, Apple was ordered to pay WARF $506 million for patent infringement. Apple filed an appellate brief on October 26, 2017, with theU.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, that argued that Apple did not infringe on the patent owned by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.[14] On September 28, 2018, the ruling was overturned on appeal and the award thrown out by the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.[15] The patent expired in December 2016.[16]
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