Samsung isn't completely absent in the A6, though. The Apple A6—labeled APL0598 on the package marks and APL0589B01 on the inside—is fabricated by Samsung on their 32 nm CMOS process and measures 9.70 mm x 9.97 mm.

Even though the A6 was manufactured by Samsung, that doesn't mean it was designed by Samsung. The Apple A6 processor is Apple's first custom-designed processor. It's based on the ARMv7s instruction set.

Because Apple had complete control over the design of the processor, they were able to customize and tweak the performance to their liking.

With a die area of 96.71 mm², the die is considerably larger than the previous generation variant of the Apple A5 (~70 sq mm), which was fabricated by Samsung using their 32 nm HKMG process; so assuming the A6 is also 32 nm, there is considerably more functionality in the new part.