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iPhone 3G S torn apart: Samsung S5PC100 (ARM Cortex A8 @ 600 MHz) inside and double the RAM

Categories: iPhone
By: , IntoMobile
Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 11:15 PM

Rapid Repair was lucky enough to attend a midnight launch party in Paris at an Orange Boutique. Instead of feasting on stinky cheeses, drinking wine, and trying to get laid, they collected their iPhone 3G S, went home, and grabbed a screw driver. I don’t judge when it comes to fetishes.

What they discovered inside has confirmed speculation floating around the internet, started by Daring Fireball, about a faster iPhone thanks to not only a speed bump, but also a new architecture. The processor in the 3G S at 600 MHz is 1.5x faster in terms of raw MHz, but it’s based on the Cortex A8 which uses the more advanced ARM v7 architecture versus the 3G model at ARM v6. All of this is meaningless information to you unless you know the intricate details of embedded processors—I don’t and reading this PDF about the Cortex A8 isn’t going to make either one of us an expert, but it’s still cool none the less. The iPhone 3G S also has twice the RAM (256 MB) compared to the previous iPhone models.

Update: Anand Lal Shimpi is the man and goes into great detail explaining the new processor.

[View more tear down photos]

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

  • Sven7

    The old iPhone ARM11 uses the ARMv6 architecture, not ARMv11! Think of it as Intel “Netburst” (ARMv6) vs. “Core” (ARMv7) architecture. And then there are different “Pentium IV” based on Netburst architecture (ARM11 based on ARMv6) and “Core xy” based on Core architecture (Cortex-A8) CPUs.

    • Stefan Constantinescu

      Thanks for the correction!

  • Julien (JaXX) Banchet

    Stefan,
    We don’t “try”, we “do” get laid ;-)

    But I admit some of our cheese smell strong, but swiss, german, or even romanian as well! -:)