Apple A6X


The Apple A6X is a 32-bit system-on-a-chip designed by Apple Inc., introduced at the launch of the fourth generation iPad on October 23, 2012. It is a high-performance variant of the Apple A6 and the last 32-bit chip released before they switched to 64-bit. Apple claims the A6X has twice the CPU performance and up to twice the graphics performance of its predecessor, the Apple A5X. Software updates for the iPad 4th generation ended in 2019 with the release of iOS 10.3.4 for cellular models, thus ceasing support for this chip.

Design

The A6X features a 1.4 GHz custom Apple-designed ARMv7-A architecture based dual-core CPU called Swift, introduced in the Apple A6. It includes an integrated quad-core PowerVR SGX554MP4 graphics processing unit running at 300 MHz and a quad-channel memory subsystem. The memory subsystem supports LPDDR2-1066 DRAM, increasing the theoretical memory bandwidth to 17 GB/s.
Unlike the A6, but similar to the A5X, the A6X is covered with a metal heat spreader, includes no RAM, and is not a package-on-package assembly. The A6X is manufactured by Samsung on a High-κ metal gate 32 nm process. It has a die with an area of 123 mm2, 30% larger than the A6.

Products that include the Apple A6X