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There is a signal processor in the iPhone 4 A5. Phil Schiller mentioned it briefly in the keynote when talking about the camera (64 mins in).

Schiller referred to it as an "Image Signal Processor" so it may be that it is custom silicone for used only by the camera but it seems more likely that it is a more general DSP and was badged like this for the presentation.

It is probably a version of ARM's NEON technology:

http://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/neon.php

  NEON technology can accelerate multimedia and signal
  processing algorithms such as video encode/decode, 2D/3D
  graphics, gaming, audio and speech processing, image
  processing, telephony, and sound synthesis by at least 
  3x the performance of ARMv5 and at least 2x the 
  performance of ARMv6 SIMD
Which directly mentions both image processing and speech processing.

Update: According to wikipedia that's exactly what it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A5

  The A5 contains a rendition of chip based upon the 
  dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore CPU with NEON SIMD
  accelerator and a dual core PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU.
Their source is the reliable AnandTech:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4216/apple-ipad-2-gpu-performa...

Also, the corresponding A4 page makes no mention of NEON or DSP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A4

Interestingly, as this is the iPad A5 being discussed it strengthens the argument for Siri-on-iPad2 (assuming the signal processor is key to Siri working efficiently).




> Also, the corresponding A4 page makes no mention of NEON or DSP

NEON is included in the A4's Cortex A8. In fact, NEON was added back in the 3GS: http://wanderingcoder.net/2010/06/02/intro-neon/

Only the 2G and the 3G don't have it.


Well, that blows that theory out of the water!

So does the iPhone 4S have a different kind of DSP, too?


I fear I have no idea at all. Sorry.




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