Chipset

Adding to the ever-growing iPad 3 rumor mill, a new photo has surfaced on the WeiPhone forums showing a system-on-a-chip nestled onto a prototype logic board, carrying a previously unheard of "A5X". The A5X chip also includes a date code of "1146", which would peg production at or around November 14th-20th of 2011.

Venture Beat claims a "very trusted" source has informed them that Apple's PA Semi team might not have been behind the new iPad's Apple A4 chipset:

PA Semi didn’t do the A4. It was the existing VLSI team. Apple has made custom chips for years like the Northbridges for G4 and G5.

During ARM's Q3 financial results announced today, 9to5Mac noticed this little gem:

including a license for ARM’s 2GHz implementation of a dual core Cortex-A9 processor.

We've heard about the Cortex A9 before. Purportedly, is 5x faster than an intel Atom, yet uses the same amount of power in a 60% smaller packager.

Could this be for next year's iPhone? For a mythical (maybe even second generation) iTablet? We don't know, but 9to5mac speculates:

Following up on rumors of a $800 Apple netbook, MacBook, iTablet, etc. VentureBeat reports that Apple might also use the new platform to introduce their long-rumored custom system-on-a-chip.