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Apple A6 Teardown

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The raised mesa-looking shapes in the magnified cross-section view (second image) are the transistors' structures, and the little pegs running between them are the actually the contacts between layers.

We can't help but think that the transistor layout looks a lot like a Roman aqueduct.

This very thin line confirms that this is a 32 nm HKMG (Hi-K metal gate) process.

The A6's 32 HKMG process is the same as the one utilized in the Apple TV 3rd Generation (APL2498 on Chipworks).

In an FET (Field Effect Transistor), K is the dielectric constant of the layer between the gate electrode and the silicon. This is a physical parameter of the material which helps control the turn-on voltage of the transistor.

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