Apple A7
| Manufacturer | Apple |
|---|---|
| Name |
A7 (S5L8960X/ S5L8965X) |
| Architecture | aarch64 |
| CPU | 1.296 GHz (S5L8960X) / 1.392 GHz (S5L8965X) 2cores (2× Apple Cyclone) |
| GPU | PowerVR G6430 (quad-core) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Process | 28nm |
| Mainline | Y |
| Components | |
| CPU |
Partial |
| UART |
Works |
| Storage | |
| USB |
Partial |
| Display |
Partial |
| GPU | |
| Pinctrl |
Works |
| I²C | |
| SPI | |
| Audio | |
| Video | |
| Thermal | |
| Camera | |
| NPU | |
| Suspend | |
| Ethernet | |
Apple A7 is the world's first aarch64 SoC for consumer devices. The ARMv8 specification is announced in 2011 and silicon design especially on a new architecture takes way longer than 2 years, so it comes with its own fair share of errata.
Development
CPU
Caches
dc cvac does nothing. dc civac can work if the following dance is performed.
- Set bit 11 in s3_0_c15_c4_0 on boot.
- Before executing
dc civac, unset bit 11 in s3_0_c15_c4_0 dc civac- Set bit 11 in s3_0_c15_c4_0 again.
Bootloader
Non-free checkra1n 1337 or openra1n (which still have non-free blobs) needed to boot pongoOS.
From pongoOS, pongoterm can be used to boot m1n1, which can boot Linux appended to it.
Graphics
A7 uses a PowerVR G6430 GPU. Right now graphics in linux is just a simplefb.
I2C
I2C in A7 is compatible with the I2C in M1 which is supported upstream. However, little work has been put in towards i2c enablement in device tree files.
SPI
SPI is either compatible or very similar to the SPI found on M1. However, none of the devices connected via SPI in all devices with A7 has a Linux driver. Notably, the multitouch sensor is connected via SPI.
WiFi
A7 doesn't have built-in WiFi module. Devices use a broadcom module connected over internal USB.
Bluetooth
A7 doesn't have built-in bluetooth module. Every device uses it's own bluetooth module typically of broadcom origin
Modem
USB
A7 uses synopsys dwc2 version 2.72a. Role switching seems to be non-standard. There is also no support for the PHY in Linux. Hotplug appears to be broken.
GPS
A7 doesn't have built-in GPS module.
Devices with a Apple A7 Chipset
| Device | Mainline |
|---|---|
| Apple iPhone 5s |