According to a Chinese report, Apple intends to increase the speed of the A8 processor to 2.0 GHz. This is a huge increase from the 1.3 GHz A7 processor found in the iPhone 5S and the Retina iPad mini. The iPad Air had a slightly faster A7 chip at 1.4 GHz, but that’s still far lower than 2.0 GHz.
Apple has increased the processor in every new iteration of iOS device, so it’s widely expected that the company will be using a faster processor in the iPhone 6 and the next set of iPads. The report claims that Apple will stick to a dual-core, 64-bit architecture. Almost all recent Android flagship devices feature quad-core processors, but they still typically do worse in benchmarks than the A7 devices.
Apple will use both TSMC and Samsung to manufacture their A8 chipset, and TSMC is expected to gradually take over from Samsung in production. However because of the huge quantity Apple needs for the iOS range, Samsung currently has to be used since it is the only company with enough production capacity. This is even more important when reports are claiming that Apple is placing huge orders for the iPhone 6, higher than any other iPhone product launch.
