Apple A9
system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc.
The Apple A9 is a 64-bit ARM-based system-on-chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., part of the Apple silicon series. Manufactured for Apple by both TSMC and Samsung, it first appeared in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus which were introduced on September 9, 2015. Apple states that it has 70% more CPU performance and 90% more graphics performance compared to its predecessor, the Apple A8. Production of A9 chips ended when the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus and first-generation iPhone SE was discontinued on September 12, 2018.
The latest software update for the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus and first generation SE is iOS 15.8.8, released on May 11, 2026 (2026-05-11), as they were discontinued with the release of iOS 16 in 2022, and for the iPad (5th generation) using this chip was iPadOS 16.7.16, released on the same date, as it was discontinued with the release of iPadOS 17 in 2023.
Design
The A9 features an Apple-designed 64-bit 1.85 GHz ARMv8-A dual-core CPU called Twister. The A9 has a per-core L1 cache of 64 KB for data and 64 KB for instructions, an L2 cache of 3 MB shared by both CPU cores, and a 4 MB L3 cache that services the entire SoC and acts as a victim cache. The A9 also features a custom PowerVR Series7XT @ 650 MHz GPU, featuring 6x custom shader cores and compiler from Apple.
The A9 includes a new image processor, a feature originally introduced in the A5 and last updated in the A7, with better temporal and spatial noise reduction as well as improved local tone mapping. The A9 directly integrates an embedded M9 motion coprocessor, a feature originally introduced with the A7 as a separate chip.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19612643. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015, 2018, 2026 and 2022.
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This entry incorporates text from “Apple A9” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.