A look under the hood of the iPhone 5s suggests that Apple once again turned to archrival Samsung to manufacture the processor inside its flagship smartphone. A Chipworks teardown has found that the A7 appears to made by Samsung using its 28-nanometer process. The ARM-based A7 is the first-ever 64-bit smartphone processor.
One of the biggest questions about the iPhone 5s has been the M7 co-processor, which handles accelerometer, gyroscope and compass data. Chipworks has found that the M7 is made by NXP. The NXP LPC18A1 collects data from a Bosch Sensortech accelerometer, an AKM compass chip, and a STMicroelectronics gyroscope.
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The M7 chip and the sensors that supply data to it stay active even when the iPhone 5s is not in use. Eventually the always-on chip could provide summaries and analysis of a user’s movements throughout the day, eliminating the need for a separate device like a Fitbit.
In addition to the M7 processor made by NXP, the Chipworks team identified a power management IC by Dialog Semiconductor and an audio codec and class D amplifier by Cirrus Logic, all of which it says are new for the iPhone 5s.
