Here’s an interesting little detail from the latest version of Xcode: it supports Marvell’s quad-core, ARM compliant Armada XP processor. Could Apple be preparing to ditch its own A-Series of systems-on-chip and go instead with Marvell for future iPhones and iPads?
Well, hold your horses. While prototype iOS devices may well be running on an off-the-shelf Marvell quad-core ARM chip, Apple’s almost certainly going to produce a quad-core chip of its own in the A6 next year.
As Ars notes:
n Armada XP-powered prototype logic board would allow iOS or Mac OS X software engineers to experiment with performance tuning and other optimizations, while Apple’s hardware design team—comprised largely of former PA Semi and Intrinsity engineers—could continue working on a possible quad-core ARM design to be manufactured somewhere down the road.
In other words, this is probably just evidence of what everyone already guessed: that Apple’s A-Series of chips will be keeping up with the rest of the ARM world and go quad-core sometime soon. As you were.
