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Apple A7

Apple A7

The Apple A7 is a high-end ARM SoC launched in September 2013 alongside the iPhone 5S. The chip can also be found in the iPad Air. It is one of the first ARM SoCs to implement the 64-bit ARMv8 ISA. The two CPU cores are clocked at 1.3 GHz (iPad Air: 1.4 GHz) and are based on Apple's Cyclone architecture. Furthermore, the chip also integrates a PowerVR Series 6 (Rogue) G6430 GPU and a 2x 32-bit LPDDR3 memory controller.

Architecture

Cyclone is the successor to the Swift architecture, which was used in the previous generation Apple A6/A6X SoCs (iPhone 5/iPad 4). The architecture is likely still a superscalar out-of-order design, but with significant revisions. Besides the new ARMv8 ISA, the chip offers various cryptography extensions (AES, SHA), extended registers and improved SIMD instructions. In combination with many other improvements like larger L1 caches and other optimizations, the performance per clock has been increased by about 50 percent. Even greater gains can be reported using 64-bit software.

Performance

Despite the low clock speed and only two CPU cores, the Apple A7 competes with other high-end ARM SoCs such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800. In software with poor parallelization like browser benchmarks, the A7 can outperform the entire ARM competition and be on par with the AMD A4-5000 or Intel Atom Z3770.

Graphics

The SoC integrates a PowerVR Series 6 (Rogue) G6430 GPU with 4 clusters. The G6430 offers more than twice the computing power of the SGX543MP3 in the Apple A6 and supports OpenGL ES 3.0 for the first time. The exact clock rate has not yet been confirmed, but it is probably in the 400 MHz range resulting in more than 100 GFLOPS. In the iPad Air, the GPU is clocked slightly higher at presumably about 450 MHz. Compared with other mobile graphics solutions, the G6430 performs similar to the tablet version of the Snapdragon 800 / Adreno 330 and is thus one of the fastest GPUs in its class. Therefore, even the most demanding iOS games of 2013 will run fluently.

Power Consumption

The A7 can be found in the Apple iPhone 5S, which offers a very long battery life despite its relatively low battery capacity. The chip is produced in a 28nm HKMG (High-K Metal Gate) process by Samsung and should have an estimated maximum power consumption of less than 2 - 3 W. In the iPad Air, the SoC should have a slightly higher TDP due to higher clock rates and less throttling.

SeriesApple
CodenameCyclone
Clock Rate1300 - 1400 MHz
Level 1 Cache256 KB
Level 2 Cache1 MB
Level 3 Cache4 MB
Number of Cores / Threads2 / 2
Transistor Count> 1000 Million
Manufacturing Technology28 nm
Die Size102 mm2
FeaturesARMv8 Instruction Set, PowerVR G6430 (4 Cluster Rogue), 2x 32 Bit LPDDR3-1333 Memory Controller
64 Bit64 Bit support
ArchitectureARM
Announcement Date09/10/2013

Benchmarks

PassMark PerformanceTest Mobile V1 - PerformanceTest Mobile V1 CPU Tests
min: 35280     avg: 36317     median: 35725.5 (5%)     max: 38536 Points
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance

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#8 min, max, avg, median took s +0.261s ... 0.329s

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Benchmarklist of all known CPUs that are used in laptops (desktop and laptop CPUs)

Other CPUs of the series

» Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite
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» Samsung Exynos 2400
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» MediaTek Dimensity 9000+
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» MediaTek Dimensity 8300-Ultra
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» HiSilicon Kirin 9000
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» HiSilicon Kirin 9000E
   8x 2.05 GHz - 3.13 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 8050
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» MediaTek Dimensity 1300
   8x 2 GHz - 3 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 8100
   8x 2 GHz - 2.85 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 1200
   8x 2 GHz - 3 GHz
» MediaTek Kompanio 1300T
   8x 2 GHz - 2.6 GHz
» Google Tensor G2
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» MediaTek Dimensity 8200-Ultra
   8x 2 GHz - 3.1 GHz
» HiSilicon Kirin 9000W
   12x 1.53 GHz - 2.49 GHz
» Google Tensor
   8x 1.8 GHz - 2.8 GHz
» HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G
   8x - 2.86 GHz
» HiSilicon Kirin 990
   8x - 2.86 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 8020
   8x 2 GHz - 2.6 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 1100
   8x 2 GHz - 2.6 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 1000+
   8x 2 GHz - 2.6 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 7050
   8x 2 GHz - 2.6 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 7030
   8x 2 GHz - 2.5 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 1080
   8x 2 GHz - 2.6 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 920
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» MediaTek Dimensity 7020
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» MediaTek Dimensity 930
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» MediaTek MT8188J
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» MediaTek Dimensity 900
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» MediaTek Dimensity 820
   8x 2 GHz - 2.6 GHz
» HiSilicon Kirin 820
   8x 1.84 GHz - 2.36 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 810
   8x 2 GHz - 2.4 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 800
   8x 2 GHz
» HiSilicon Kirin 820e
   8x 1.84 GHz - 2.22 GHz
» HiSilicon Kirin 810
   8x 1.88 GHz - 2.27 GHz
» HiSilicon Kirin 980
   8x - 2.6 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 800U
   8x 2 GHz - 2.4 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 6100+
   8x 2 GHz - 2.2 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 6020
   8x 2 GHz - 2.2 GHz
» UNISOC T820
   8x 2.1 GHz - 2.7 GHz
» UNISOC Tangula T770
   8x 2 GHz - 2.5 GHz
» UNISOC Tangula T760
   8x 2 GHz - 2 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 700
   8x 2 GHz - 2.2 GHz
» UNISOC T765
   8x 2.1 GHz - 2.3 GHz
» MediaTek Dimensity 720
   8x 2 GHz
» HiSilicon Kirin 970
   8x 2.4 GHz
» HiSilicon Kirin 960
   8x 2.4 GHz
» HiSilicon Kirin 960s
   8x 2.1 GHz
» Apple A9X
   2x 2.26 GHz
» UNISOC T750
   8x 1.8 GHz - 2 GHz
» UNISOC Tangula T740
   8x 1.8 GHz - 1.8 GHz
» HiSilicon Kirin 955
   8x 2.5 GHz
» HiSilicon Kirin 950
   8x 2.3 GHz
» UNISOC T619
   8x 1.8 GHz - 2.2 GHz
» UNISOC T618
   8x 2 GHz - 2 GHz
» UNISOC T616
   8x 1.8 GHz - 2 GHz
» UNISOC T612
   8x 1.8 GHz - 2 GHz
» UNISOC T610
   8x 1.8 GHz - 2 GHz
» UNISOC T606
   8x 1.6 GHz
» UNISOC Tangula T700
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» HiSilicon Kirin 710
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» HiSilicon Kirin 710A
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» HiSilicon Kirin 925
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» HiSilicon Kirin 935
   8x 2.2 GHz
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» HiSilicon Kirin 658
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» Rockchip RK3288
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» MediaTek MT8163 V/B 1.3 GHz
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» MediaTek MT8161
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» AMD GX-210JA
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» Marvell Armada PXA1908
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» Apple S8
   2x 1.8 GHz
» Apple S7
   2x 1.8 GHz
» Apple S6
   2x 1.8 GHz
» Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100+
   5x - 1.7 GHz
» Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100
   4x - 1.7 GHz
» Apple A6x
   2x 1.4 GHz
» Apple A6
   2x 1 GHz
» Apple S5
   2x
» Marvell PXA1088
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» Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100
   4x - 1.2 GHz
» Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2500
   4x - 1.2 GHz
» Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100
   4x - 1.2 GHz
» Intel Celeron 2.8 GHz
   1x 2.8 GHz
» Texas Instruments OMAP 4470
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» HiSilicon k3v2 Hi3620
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» Rockchip RK3066 1.5 GHz
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» Renesas MP5232
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» Broadcom BCM21664T
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» ARM Cortex-M4
   
» Dialog DA14697
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» HiSilicon Hi6262
   
» ST STM32L4R9
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» Cypress PSoC6 MCU
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» ST32
   
» Ambiq Apollo 3.5
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» Ambiq Apollo 3
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» NXP MK26FN2M0CAC18R
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» DK3.5+ST
   2x
» unknown
   

Surrounding CPUs

+ HiSilicon Kirin 930
   8x 2 GHz
+ Mediatek Helio P35 MT6765
   8x 1.8 GHz - 2.3 GHz
+ Mediatek Helio P22T MT8768T
   8x 2.3 GHz
+ Mediatek Helio P22 MT6762
   8x 2 GHz
+ Mediatek Helio P10 MT6755
   8x 2 GHz
» Apple A7
   2x 1.3 GHz
- Intel Atom Z3570
   4x 2 GHz
- MediaTek MT8168
   4x 2 GHz
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 450
   8x 1.8 GHz
- Intel Atom Z3560
   4x 1.83 GHz
- Samsung Exynos 5410 Octa
   8x 1.6 GHz