Reports have surfaced indicated that Foxconn, Apple’s manufacturing partner largely responsible for building its iPhones and iPads, have begun manufacturing a next generation iPad.

Those same reports corroborate earlier rumors suggesting that the device will include a high definition retina display and a faster processor. The processor will reportedly be a quad core. The Apple A5 incorporates the Cortex A9 processor by ARM. To facilitate a quad-core architecture, the Apple A6 will need to leverage a modified Cortex A9, or perhaps an A15. Little more than speculation exists over what the actual clock speed of the cores will be.

The report also adds that the new tablet will offer 4G LTE connectivity. Currently Apple sell two different classes of iPads: those including only WiFi as a means of internet access, and those which offer WiFi and 3G connectivity. It is presumed that this scheme will continue to hold with WiFi + 4G LTE replacing the WiFi + 3G model.

iPad 3 is also said to bring higher performance graphics processing. The iPad 2, released last March, boasted graphics capabilities 9x more powerful than the original iPad of 2010.

Finally, the new model is expected to be slightly thicker than its predecessor. This is due to the higher pixel density of the retina display and the need for an additional backlight, and more powerful battery to sustain it.