When the iPhone 16 line launches this September, we count on it to usher in a brand new A-series processor. As has been the case in the previous few years, the top-end “Professional” fashions will get a brand new processor whereas the common iPhone 16 non-Professional fashions will probably get a model of the A17 Professional chip discovered on this yr’s iPhone 15 Professional.
As we do yearly, we’ll have a look at the historical past and efficiency of the A-series processors from the final a number of years, together with the current rumors and general business tendencies, to anticipate what we’d count on from Apple’s new iPhone silicon this fall. As all the time, that is all simply guesswork; Apple is a famously secretive firm, and the main points about its merchandise are sometimes not absolutely revealed till they’re launched.
To “Professional” or to not “Professional”?
Final yr, Apple launched what is likely to be an all-new wrinkle into the anticipated improve sample. Altering the identify from “A17 Bionic” to “A17 Professional” for the primary time, the implication is that there can be a brand new non-Professional chip every technology too. That hasn’t but come to move, however we’d see one thing totally different this yr.
There are three probably potentialities for what Apple could do along with making a brand new A18 Professional for the iPhone 16 Professional and Professional Max:
- Make a brand new A18 for the common iPhone 16 and 16 Plus that’s basically the A17 Professional given a brand new identify. There is likely to be minor technical variations however efficiency and options can be the identical because the A17 Professional.
- Apple makes a newly-designed A18 chip for the non-Professional iPhones. It’s based mostly on the identical structure because the A18 Professional however with lesser efficiency in some areas (maybe as a consequence of decrease clock velocity or lowered lively core rely).
- Apple retains utilizing the A17 Professional for the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus; the A18 Professional is the one “new” iPhone chip this yr. That is what Apple did within the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 generations.
It’s exhausting to say which is extra probably, solely that the high-end chip will in all probability as soon as once more carry the “Professional” identify as a substitute of “Bionic” and launch solely within the iPhone 16 Professional fashions. We’ve heard rumors that the lower-end chip within the iPhone 16 might be known as “A18” this yr, however even when that’s true we don’t know if it will likely be an actually new chip or only a rebranded iPhone 17 Professional. And we heard comparable rumors final yr that didn’t pan out.
Our evaluation right here is focused on the A18 Professional, what we assume Apple will name the higher-end model of the chip powering this yr’s iPhones.
Nonetheless made with a 3nm course of
The A17 Professional was the primary mass-market client chip to make use of a 3nm manufacturing course of. And whereas TSMC is on monitor with the 2nm chips that come subsequent, we don’t count on to see an Apple product utilizing that course of till subsequent yr a the earliest. So the A18 Professional might be made with TSMC’s 3nm course of once more.
The 3nm course of used for the A17 Professional was often called N3, and because the first iteration of 3nm know-how from TSMC it was fairly costly. The corporate has a more recent course of often called N3E, which is way simpler to fabricate at scale. It must be barely extra energy environment friendly than the unique N3 course of but additionally barely much less “dense”, which suggests a chip constructed utilizing N3E can be barely bigger than an similar chip made with N3.
There are rumors that the A18 Professional might be a bodily bigger chip than the A17 Professional—the change to N3E could also be one cause, however we count on Apple will even improve transistor rely to extra then 20 billion (A17 Professional is a 19 billion transistor chip). To place that in perspective, a contemporary Intel “Raptor Lake” technology laptop computer CPU is estimated to have a transistor rely round 26 billion transistors, which the top-tier massive Nvidia GeForce 4090 RTX desktop GPU is a 74 billion transistor chip.
CPU efficiency will in all probability enhance
All of the rumors have targeted on AI efficiency, and why not when that’s the new subject of the day? However Apple is all the time involved about CPU efficiency, and shares core designs between its A-series iPhone/iPad chips and it’s M-series Mac (and iPad Professional) chips.
Simply have a look at this chart of single-core Geekbench 6 efficiency for iPhone chips all the best way again to the A11.
What strikes me as most outstanding is simply how steadily single-core efficiency has elevated. We’ve estimated the A18 efficiency by persevering with the development from the final a number of chips, and it offers us a single-core Geekbench 6 rating of virtually 3,200. That’s only a contact quicker than an Intel Core i9-13900KS, a really high-end desktop CPU.
After all, highly effective desktop and laptop computer CPUs have many extra cores than a cellphone processor. We predict the A18 Professional could have the identical core configuration as most up-to-date A-series chips: two efficiency cores and 4 effectivity cores.
Quicker cores, cache, and reminiscence will push up the multi-core rating even when Apple makes use of the identical variety of cores. We’ve seen a reasonably regular efficiency development for multi-core efficiency as effectively, and don’t count on that to abruptly change. A multi-core rating of over 8,200 would put the A18 Professional in the identical territory as a mid-tier Intel or AMD laptop computer CPU from about three years in the past.
GPU efficiency all the time goes up
Utilizing the fashionable 3DMark Wild Life benchmark in Limitless mode, we get a good suggestion of how a lot GPU efficiency has improved over time. Body charges have greater than quadrupled because the iPhone X days. It’s not fairly as regular as CPU efficiency–some years the uplift is 10 % or much less and in others years it’s nearer to 30 %.
We don’t have any cause to consider that GPU efficiency received’t be higher this time round as effectively, although the rumors say Apple isn’t including extra GPU cores. Architectural efficiencies can go a good distance. Our guess is a 10-15 % enchancment in real-world CPU efficiency.
The 3DMark Photo voltaic Bay check stresses ray tracing efficiency, so that you see a lot decrease body charges general.
Efficiency took a large bounce up with the A17 Professional on this check as a result of Apple added {hardware} to assist speed up ray tracing. There could also be some tweaks this yr, however we don’t suppose the same bounce could be anticipated on this check within the A18 Professional–once more, we’re in all probability going to see a 10-15 % increase.
Neural Engine could get a giant improve
The Neural Engine is Apple’s identify for it’s NPU or “Neural Processor Unit”—specialised {hardware} made to optimally run neural networks for machine studying, deep studying, and AI software program in the identical approach the GPU is made for graphics processing.
Apple is claimed to be all-in on AI this yr, with large AI options coming to iOS 18 and the iPhone 16 line. I believe which means we will count on a giant enchancment in Neural Engine efficiency.
However the Neural Engine has been getting quicker at a daily tempo because it was first launched within the A11 (discovered within the iPhone 8 and iPhone X). That first Neural Engine may carry out 600 billion operations per second, whereas the Neural Engine within the A17 Professional is touted as in a position to deal with 35 trillion operations per second (TOPS).
Right here’s how that efficiency improve over time has manifested in efficiency utilizing the brand new GeekBench ML benchmark, focusing on the NPU solely.
Geekbench ML is a comparatively new benchmark, solely on model 0.6, that runs a set of machine studying duties like picture recognition, object classification, picture tremendous decision, and language processing to evaluate the efficiency of CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs. When working the check solely the the Neural Engine, we see a greater than 8-fold enchancment over the past six years, and a mean yearly speedup of roughly 20%.
Notably, the rating didn’t double from the A16 to A17 technology despite the fact that Apple mentioned Neural Engine efficiency jumped from 17 TOPS to 35 TOPS. The claimed most efficiency specs usually don’t match real-world efficiency numbers.
Apple’s Neural Engine already delivers significantly better efficiency than opponents just like the NPU within the Snapdragon 8+ gen 1 (round 2,800 factors relying on which cellphone it’s in) or Google’s Tensor G3 (beneath 2,400 factors). Merely taking the previous efficiency features and projecting it ahead would give us a rating of virtually 4,100 factors and a commanding lead over most opponents.
I believe we will safely ignore this chart for the A18 Professional, nonetheless. Current rumors counsel that Apple will dedicate extra silicon to the Neural Engine and push for a giant efficiency increase with a purpose to energy extra superior AI options solely on-device. I wouldn’t be shocked if Apple touted a extremely large quantity for its Neural Engine this yr–over 50 TOPS is nearly sure—and we may see a Geekbench ML rating nearer to five,000.
RAM, 5G, and extra
After all, there’s extra to the A18 Professional than the CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine. Then there are associated chips that aren’t technically a part of the A18 Professional however are nonetheless vital to iPhone customers, just like the mobile modem.
The brand new LPDDR6 reminiscence commonplace remains to be too new to make it into this yr’s iPhones, however Apple may transfer from LPDDR5 to LPDDR5x—offering for barely extra reminiscence bandwidth and whereas utilizing much less energy. The A17 Professional made the leap from 6GB to 8GB of RAM and it feels too quickly for Apple to leap up once more. Then again, AI fashions are typically very memory-intensive and we may see Apple improve RAM simply to allow greater and extra subtle AI fashions on the brand new telephones.
On the wi-fi entrance, we must always count on an improve to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X75 modem for quicker and extra dependable 5G connections. Apple has been working by itself wi-fi chips for years however is having a tough time getting them to a degree the place they supply a adequate expertise. There have additionally been rumors of an improve to Wi-Fi 7, and naturally, we will count on Extremely Wideband, Bluetooth, and NFC options which are just like these within the iPhone 15 line.