According to Aaron Vronko, the CEO of Michigan-based Rapid Repair, the iPhone 3G S sports an ARM Cortex A8 microprocessor running at 600 MHz. Last year's iPhone 3G, by comparison, sports an ARM 11 running at 412 MHz.

"One of the two most significant changes in the iPhone 3G S was to what's called the Mobile Application Processor, the Samsung 'system-on-a-chip'," said Vronko, who flew to France to be one of the first to purchase the new iPhone. Vronko then took the phone to BricoMac, a Paris repair company, to disassemble the device.

Vronko has posted a , complete with photos, to the Rapid Repair site. As its name suggests, Rapid Repair is a repair shop and parts supplier for iPods, iPhones, Zunes and other consumer electronics.

The processor in the Samsung package boasts a new and improved ARM architecture, said Vronko, that in and of itself is almost twice as efficient at the same clock speeds as what Apple stuck in the iPhone 3G. "It's the latest ARM design," said Vronko, "running here at 600MHz. But with the faster clock speed, 50% or so faster than last year, the result is that Apple's upgraded the iPhone 3G S 2.5 to 3 times in processing capability."

When last week, the company bragged about its performance, saying that the "S" stood for "speed," and that the new model was "up to 2x faster and more responsive than iPhone 3G."