Apple A9 chip was introduced in September 2015 alongside the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. It is among the high-end dual-core ARM System on chip designed by Apple and a successor to the Apple A8 SoC. According to Series of Benchmark testing, the A9 chip was found to have a 70% CPU performance boost, as well as a 90% increase in GPU speed offering over 100% increase in efficiency and performance over its predecessors.
Apple and Qualcomm are two most powerful chip makers with other brands like MediaTek tagging along. Apple has however excelled at building it’s own Ax SoCs for it’s mobile gadgets like the iPhone and iPads.
Process Technology (nm)
The A9 unlike its predecessors was manufactured under two processes. Samsung’s 14nm at 96mm square large and TSMC’s 16nm at 104.5mm square large, which incorporates both a small die and 3D FinFET transistors.
FinFET is not just a new manufacturing node, but it’s part of a broader change in how transistors are manufactured. Simply put, FinFET aka 3D transistors are long in development technology meant to help transistors scale to increasingly small scales, on the order of dozens of atoms or less. Even with the addition of two processes, performance difference in both versions are not really noticeable.
Processor
The chip is running on a dual-core ARMv8 architectural CPU design which has been clocked to estimated 1.85GHz. It is designed on Apple’s third generation 64bit which is codenamed “Cyclone 3”.
Following real life Tests, the Apple iPhone 6s Plus outperforms the Samsung Galaxy S6 in a single core performance. The A9 is also known to integrate a faster Li cache with clock rate of 64kb.
Apple A9 Graphics
The PowerVR GT7600 from Imagination Technologies is a high-end smartphone GPU incorporated in the Apple A9 for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. During the time of its announcement in September 2015, it was ranked as the fastest GPU for smartphones and even beats current tablet GPUs.
The GT7600 is part of the Series 7XT line-up and is based on a unified shader architecture with hexa-core 6 clusters that integrate 384 (FP16) and 192 (FP32) ALU cores. Compared to the Series 6XT GPU in the Apple A8 and A8x, Imgagination Technology states that the performance and efficiency of the cores have been increased.
The PowerVR GT7600 was clearly the fastest smartphone GPU on the market as of September 2015. It should be very energy efficient due in part to the use of 3D transistors and an improved 14/16 nm fabrication process.
Benchmarks (AnTuTu)
Over at AnTuTu, specifically on the version 6, the chip reaches a low of 126969, avg of 129767, median of 128706 and max points of 133626. With these scores, it can be compared with the modern day Snapdragon 660 and Helio P60.
Apple A9 Phones
• Apple iPhone 6s
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
• Apple iPhone SE
Apple A9 Full Specifications
Chipset Details
| Series | A |
| Codenames | A9 |
| Announced | 2015 |
| Released | 2015 |
| Number Of Cores | 2-Cores |
| Clock Speed | 1800MHz |
| Process Technology | 14/16nm |
| CPU | Dual-core 1.8GHz |
| Cores | 2-Cores |
| Bit Architecture | 64-bit |
| GPU (Graphics) | PowerVR GT7600 |
| GPU (Cores) | 6-Cores |
| GPU (Frequency) | 450MHz |
| Memory Speed | 1333MHz |
==> Disclaimer: Specifications, features shown for this chipset was inserted manually. We cannot guarantee that the info on this page is 100% correct. If you think that any information of this particular chipset is wrong or missing, please don’t hesitate to Contact Us.
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