Steve Jobs touted the iPad's processor as "custom silicon" and the "most advanced chip" Apple has ever done, but it appears the company didn't do much with it at all.
Dubbed the A4, the iPad's brain is actually a system-on-a-chip (SOC) consisting of the Cortex A8 single-core processor made by ARM and Imagination Technologies' PowerVR SGX graphics processing unit, tipsters have told ArsTechnica's Jon Stokes.
In other words, Apple licensed chips from other providers like it did with the iPhone, and it didn't produce the parts in-house, which many assumed to be the case when Jobs introduced the iPad and the A4 in January.
Apple has not provided official details on the A4's specifications, which is unsurprising. Apple has traditionally been secretive about the exact components inside its previous products, leaving component analysts such as iSuppli to rip apart the gadgets and figure out the nitty-gritty details about their guts.
The Cortex A8 and the PowerVR SGX would make sense, as they're the same technologies used in the iPhone and iPod Touch. MacRumors also spotted a clause in the iPad's software development kit that confirmed the SGX is being used in the iPad.
If the A4 SOC's parts were outsourced, the role of PA Semi, a semiconductor manufacturer that Apple acquired in April 2008, remains unclear. Stokes speculates that the PA Semi team may have helped optimize the A4 to extend battery life for the iPad, which Apple claims will last 10 hours with active usage and one month on standby.
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