A closer look at iPhone 3G S Cortex-A8 ARM and PowerVR chips
By Prince McLean
The iPhone 3G S uses a Samsung processor incorporating an ARM Cortex-A8 processor core and Imagination’s PowerVR SGX graphics core to achieve a significant new class of speed while remaining backwardly compatible with existing iPhone apps.
The use of the Cortex-A8 core has been cited by multiple sources, including an analysis by AnandTech. This makes the new iPhone 3G S very similar in terms of processor design to the Palm Pre, although Palm’s phone uses a device built by Texas Instruments.
ARM Processors
The Cortex-A8 is a seventh generation CPU core design licensed by ARM to a variety of manufacturers. The vast majority of all smartphones, handheld games and other mobile devices use ARM processors.
The Cortex-A8 class is referred to in general terms as ARMv7, not to be confused with ARM7, which was actually a third generation ARMv3 used in the Apple eMate300 a decade ago. Previous generations of iPhone and
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