Apple’s A7 SoC is the latest chipset from the Cupertino company. As it stands the chipset resides in devices like the iPhone 5s, the iPad Air, and the Retina iPad mini, and while the A7 might be the first 64-bit mobile chipset, it seems that it might have infringed upon a patent owned by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, who has recently filed a lawsuit against Apple for patent infringement which is known as, “Table based data speculation circuit for parallel processing computer”.For those wondering what exactly the patent entails, it is “A predictor circuit permits advanced execution of instructions depending for their data on previous instructions by predicting such dependencies based on previous mis-speculations detected at the final stages of processing. Synchronization of dependent instructions is provided by a table creating entries for each instance of potential dependency. Table entries are created and deleted dynamically to limit total memory requirements.”
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation claims that this is the technology that Apple had infringed upon when it designed its A7 chipset to be more efficient and more powerful than before, and are now asking the courts to stop Apple from further violating their patent, as well as seeking any damages for Apple’s unauthorized use of its patent. It is unclear how Apple will respond to this but this is not the first time the Cupertino company has been accused of patent infringement, and we doubt it will be the last.
However given that the A7 is in Apple’s latest products, chances are Apple will want to address this ASAP lest it leads to an injunction of sorts which could cost Apple a fair amount of money in terms of lost sales.
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