Citing
a report in the New
York Times, Apple
Insider suggests
that Apple’s investment in the new A4 chip that powers the iPad
was likely to have hit $1 billio–and that’s without building a
factory to manufacture the chips. Processors based on ARM technology
have become ubiquitous in consumer electronics like smart phones and
PDA’s, but Apple’s use of the architecture as the basis for their
iPad indicates that while ARM chips may be low in power consumption,
but they aren’t low in processing power.

ARM
processors are generally greener than Intel’s Atom chips, requiring
less power and less money. Apple has long used ARM processors in
iPods
and iPhones, and created their new A4 chip as a customized 1GHz
version of the Cortex-A9,
integrating both the CPU and graphics processor on a single chip. The
iPhone 3GS uses a 600MHz Cortex-A8, and has impressed many with its
power. But clearly Apple sees even greater potential, betting as much
as a billion dollars on the technology’s ability to scale up and
handle even more intense tasks. In fact, HP and Lenovo plan to
incorporate ARM into new laptops.

Steve
Jobs describes the A4 as “our
most advanced chip we’ve ever done that powers the iPad. It’s got the
processor, the graphics, the I/O, the memory controller — everything
in this one chip, and it screams.” It’s the A4′s low power
requirements that allow Apple to claim the iPad will have 10 hours of
battery life with constant use, and weeks of standby power.