The iPad is leveraging the new A4 chip from Apple, the first time Apple has released their own chip. Running at 1GhZ, the A4 is an ARM-based chip. The A4 is similar, if not the the ARM Coretex-A9 MPCore processor with graphics brought to you by the ARM Mali 50, capable of 720p hi-def video. These chips are what are referred to as System on a Chip, which stands for SOC. An SOC has a processor, graphics and memory together on the chip. If this sounds similar to an Atom chip, such as Moorestown from Intel then you’re not crazy, it is. This is similar to the Snapdragon chips from Qualcom, the Nexus One from Google and the Tegra from NVIDIA.
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The speed of the chip and the power saving is probably the most interesting thing about the iPad. While the design is similar, albeit bigger than the iPhone and iPod Touch, the underlying chip allows it to remain snappy despite higher workloads, giving developers a little more to play with. What all this means to the consumer: expect development of tools the far surpass those available to the iPhone and iPod Touch. And with 10 hours of battery life it will be interesting to see how the product shakes out.
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