Early iPhone systems-on-chip

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Early iPhone systems-on-chip
The S5L8900 system on a chip (SoC)
General information
Launched2007
Designed bySamsung Electronics, based on specifications by Apple Inc.
Common manufacturer(s)

iPhone and iPod Touch models released between 2007 and 2009 used system on a chip (SoC) circuits designed by Samsung and manufactured to Apple's specifications. Two such SoCs were used: the Samsung S5L8900, used in the first-generation iPhone, the iPhone 3G, and the first-generation iPod Touch,[1] and the Samsung S5L8920, used in the iPhone 3GS and the third-generation iPod Touch.[2] Both chips belong to Samsung's S5L family of SoCs.

Apple later switched to SoCs that are designed in-house, starting with the Apple A4.

History[edit]

In 2006, Apple introduced the 2nd generation iPod nano and the iPod Classic. The iPhone, internally called Project Purple, was also in development. Apple needed new SoCs for this planned expansion of the product range, so the S5L87 SoCs were created for the less power-hungry iPod family, and - after initial iPhone prototypes with a Freescale i.MX31 SoC, the S5L89 SoCs were adopted. The S5L87 SoCs were the successors of the PortalPlayer processors used in the iPod until then. Initially, there were no plans to run third-party software on S5L89 SoCs.[3] Accordingly, the GPUs were designed to prioritize energy efficiency over power.[4] This changed with the introduction of the App Store. As a result, Apple bought the chip design company P.A. Semi in 2008[5] and developed the almost identical[6] S5L8922 and S5L8930 (Apple A4) SoCs to meet increased power requirements. Since 2010, Apple has marketed the S5L89 series as the "Apple A" chip series, starting with the Apple A4 (S5L8930).

Intel's chip supply attempt[edit]

In the years leading up to the original iPhone's launch, Intel was in talks with Apple to use Intel x86 chips for the iPhone's processor, instead of ARM.[7][8] In his autobiography, Steve Jobs claimed that Apple rejected this option due to Intel being too organizationally "slow", and a desire to avoid strengthening Apple's competitors. Intel's CEO Paul Otellini claims the two companies were unable to agree on price and were unwilling to give up control over the chip's design. Otellini later explained that he turned down the deal due to low expected sales, which would not have made up for forecasted costs, and said that "in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought."[9][10]

In 2016, Intel laid off 12,000 workers. The company's failure to "pivot into mobile" was seen by some reporters as a key factor.[11]

Samsung SoCs[edit]

Further information: List of Samsung systems on a chip

S5L8900[edit]

The Samsung S5L8900 is a 32-bit system on a chip (SoC) manufactured by Samsung for Apple. It combines an ARM CPU with a PowerVR graphics processor. The first product to feature the chip was the original iPhone, followed by the iPod Touch, and iPhone 3G.

Other names for the S5L8900 are ARM 8900B and APL0098. It belongs to Samsung's S5L family of SoCs.

The S5L8900 contains a 32-bit ARMv6 compatible ARM 1176JZF-S CPU core and is manufactured in the 90 nm CMOS process. The default clock rate of the CPU core is normally 666.6 MHz, but has been lowered by Apple to about 412 MHz,[12] and the bus frequency is about 103 MHz. The size of the level 1 cache is 16384 bytes each for data and instruction cache. The memory has a size of 116 MB.[13] As SoC, S5L8900 also has an integrated GPU, a PowerVR MBX LITE clocked at 60 MHz. The S5L8900 thus supports OpenGL 1.1. NOR flash is used to initiate the processor start.

Competing architectures of similar products are Qualcomm's Snapdragon, Texas Instruments' OMAP 4, Nvidia's Tegra 2 and Samsung's Exynos.

The last operating system update Apple provided for a mobile device containing an S5L8900 (iPhone 3G) was iOS 4.2.1,[14] which was released on November 22, 2010.[15]

S5L8720[edit]

The Samsung S5L8720 is a 32-bit system on a chip (SoC) manufactured by Samsung for Apple. It is used in the iPod touch (2nd generation). It is similar to the S5L8900.

S5L8920[edit]

The S5L8920 chip used in the iPhone 3GS

The Samsung S5L8920 is a 32-bit system on a chip (SoC) manufactured by Samsung for Apple. The only iPhone to use it was the iPhone 3GS, before being replaced with the Apple A4 with the release of the iPhone 4.[16] The chip is an updated version of the S5L8900 with more processing power.[17] As a result, the iPhone 3GS was widely praised for its increased CPU and GPU performance.[18][19]

The S5L8920 contains an ARM Cortex-A8 main processor that is compatible with 32-bit Armv7, and backward compatible with ARMv6. It is manufactured in the 65nm CMOS process. The standard Cortex-A8 clock rate is normally 833 MHz, but has been lowered by Apple to around 600 MHz.[20] The memory size is 254 MB.[Note 1][13] Like its predecessor SoCs, the S5L8920 also has an integrated GPU, a PowerVR SGX535. The S5L8920 thus supports OpenGL 2.0, OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenGL ES 1.1 with the Extension Pack and OpenVG 1.0.1 & 1.1. A NOR flash is used to boot the processor.

Similar competing architectures include Qualcomm's Snapdragon, Texas Instruments' OMAP 4, Nvidia's Tegra 2 and Samsung's Exynos.

The last operating system that supported the S5L8920 chip was iOS 6.1.6, which was released on February 21, 2014.[21]

S5L8922[edit]

The Samsung S5L8922 is a 32-bit system on a chip (SoC) manufactured by Samsung for Apple. It is used in the iPod touch (3rd generation). It is similar to the S5L8920.

Design flaw[edit]

A design flaw was discovered in S5L89xx chips: it allows arbitrary code to be executed through the limera1n exploit, a BootROM bug, which was mainly used by jailbreaks.[22] This bug, which cannot be patched through software updates, also allows, among other things, the passcode lock of the iPhone to be bypassed by executing a bruteforce program within a few minutes without much effort. This bug was fixed with the Apple A5 chip.[citation needed]

Later developments[edit]

Apple later switched to designing their chips in-house after their acquisition of Intrinsity and PA Semi, leading to the creation of the Apple A4 used in the iPhone 4.[23]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ As obtained with "SysInfoPlus", a jailbreak app downloaded through Cydia

References[edit]

  1. ^ "All Devices Using Samsung S5L8900". DeviceBeast. 8 October 2021. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  2. ^ "All Devices Using Samsung S5L8920". DeviceBeast. 8 October 2021. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  3. ^ Timmer, John (2017-06-28). "A touch of Cocoa: Inside the original iPhone SDK". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  4. ^ "PowerVR GPUs: Bringing OpenGL ES graphics to mobile for over ten years - With Imagination". imagination Tech. 2014-01-12. Archived from the original on January 12, 2014. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  5. ^ "Apple Buys Chip Designer". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  6. ^ "Seziert und analysiert: Noch mehr Details zum Apple A4". Mac Life (in German). 2010-05-11. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  7. ^ Lee, Timothy B. (2016-04-20). "Intel made a huge mistake 10 years ago. Now 12,000 workers are paying the price". Vox. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  8. ^ Miller, Chris (2022-10-04). Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-9821-7200-8.
  9. ^ "Outgoing Intel CEO regrets not getting Intel CPU in iPhone". Engadget. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  10. ^ Madrigal, Alexis C. (2013-05-16). "Paul Otellini's Intel: Can the Company That Built the Future Survive It?". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  11. ^ Shieber, Jonathan (2016-05-17). "How Intel missed the iPhone revolution". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  12. ^ PhoneDB. "Samsung S5L8900 datasheet | Processor Specs | PhoneDB". phonedb.net. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  13. ^ a b As obtained with "SysInfoPlus", a jailbreak app downloaded through Cydia.
  14. ^ Cunningham, Andrew (March 9, 2011). "iOS 4.3 Review". AnandTech. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  15. ^ "Apple releases iOS 4.2.1". Macworld. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  16. ^ "ARM to A4: How Apple changed the climate in mobile silicon". AppleInsider. 6 November 2019. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  17. ^ "iPhone 3GS Review". Gizmodo. 2009-06-17. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  18. ^ Shimpi, Anand Lal (July 7, 2009). "Understanding the iPhone 3GS". www.anandtech.com. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  19. ^ "iPhone 3GS Smokes Competition in OpenGL Benchmarks - ExtremeTech". ExtremeTech. June 30, 2009. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  20. ^ "Samsung S5L8920 - CPUlist". PDAdb.net. 2011-05-02. Archived from the original on 2011-05-02. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  21. ^ Kahn, Jordan. "iOS 6.1.6 Archives". 9to5Mac. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  22. ^ "Apple hat vermutlich den Limera1n Exploit in neuen Geräten bereits wieder gepatched" [Apple has probably already patched the Limera1n exploit in new devices]. hack2learn (in German). 2013-12-30. Archived from the original on 2013-12-30. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  23. ^ Stokes, Jon (2010-04-28). "Apple purchase of Intrinsity confirmed". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
Supported iOS versions on the iPod Touch
OS release iPod Touch models and chip
Pre-A series A4 A5 A8 A10
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th
iPhone OS 1 1.1 — — — — — —
iPhone OS 2 Yes 2.1.1 — — — — —
iPhone OS 3 Yes Yes 3.1.1 — — — —
iOS 4 No 4.2.1 Yes 4.1 — — —
iOS 5 No No Yes Yes — — —
iOS 6 No No No Yes Yes — —
iOS 7 No No No No Yes — —
iOS 8 No No No No Yes 8.4 —
iOS 9 No No No No Yes Yes —
iOS 10 No No No No No Yes —
iOS 11 No No No No No Yes —
iOS 12 No No No No No Yes 12.3.1
iOS 13 No No No No No No Yes
iOS 14 No No No No No No Yes
iOS 15 No No No No No No Yes
iOS 16+ No No No No No No No
Notes:
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