When the iPhone 16 line launches this September, we anticipate it to usher in a brand new A-series processor. As has been the case in the previous couple of years, the top-end “Professional” fashions will get a brand new processor whereas the common iPhone 16 non-Professional fashions will possible 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 developments, to anticipate what we would anticipate from Apple’s new iPhone silicon this fall. As at all times, that is all simply guesswork; Apple is a famously secretive firm, and the main points about its merchandise are sometimes not totally revealed till they’re launched.
To “Professional” or to not “Professional”?
Final yr, Apple launched what is perhaps an all-new wrinkle into the anticipated improve sample. Altering the title from “A17 Bionic” to “A17 Professional” for the primary time, the implication is that there could be a brand new non-Professional chip every technology too. That hasn’t but come to go, however we would see one thing completely different this yr.
There are three possible 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 primarily the A17 Professional given a brand new title. There is perhaps minor technical variations however efficiency and options could 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 because of decrease clock velocity or decreased energetic core depend).
- 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 laborious to say which is extra possible, solely that the high-end chip will most likely as soon as once more carry the “Professional” title as an alternative of “Bionic” and launch solely within the iPhone 16 Professional fashions. We’ve heard rumors that the lower-end chip within the iPhone 16 will likely be known as “A18” this yr, however even when that’s true we don’t know if will probably 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 shopper chip to make use of a 3nm manufacturing course of. And whereas TSMC is on observe with the 2nm chips that come subsequent, we don’t anticipate to see an Apple product utilizing that course of till subsequent yr a the earliest. So the A18 Professional will likely be made with TSMC’s 3nm course of once more.
The 3nm course of used for the A17 Professional was generally known as N3, and because the first iteration of 3nm know-how from TSMC it was fairly costly. The corporate has a more moderen course of generally known as N3E, which is much simpler to fabricate at scale. It needs to be barely extra energy environment friendly than the unique N3 course of but additionally barely much less “dense”, which implies a chip constructed utilizing N3E could be barely bigger than an equivalent chip made with N3.
There are rumors that the A18 Professional will likely be a bodily bigger chip than the A17 Professional—the change to N3E could also be one purpose, however we anticipate Apple may even enhance transistor depend 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 depend round 26 billion transistors, which the top-tier giant Nvidia GeForce 4090 RTX desktop GPU is a 74 billion transistor chip.
CPU efficiency will most likely 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 at all times 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 provides us a single-core Geekbench 6 rating of just about 3,200. That’s only a contact quicker than an Intel Core i9-13900KS, a really high-end desktop CPU.
In fact, highly effective desktop and laptop computer CPUs have many extra cores than a cellphone processor. We expect 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 fairly regular efficiency development for multi-core efficiency as properly, and don’t anticipate that to instantly 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 at all times 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 purpose to consider that GPU efficiency gained’t be higher this time round as properly, 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 enormous leap 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 leap could be anticipated on this check within the A18 Professional–once more, we’re most likely going to see a 10-15 % increase.
Neural Engine could get an enormous improve
The Neural Engine is Apple’s title 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 alleged to be all-in on AI this yr, with large AI options coming to iOS 18 and the iPhone 16 line. I feel which means we will anticipate an enormous enchancment in Neural Engine efficiency.
However the Neural Engine has been getting quicker at an everyday tempo because it was first launched within the A11 (discovered within the iPhone 8 and iPhone X). That first Neural Engine might carry out 600 billion operations per second, whereas the Neural Engine within the A17 Professional is touted as capable of deal with 35 trillion operations per second (TOPS).
Right here’s how that efficiency enhance over time has manifested in efficiency utilizing the brand new GeekBench ML benchmark, focusing on the NPU solely.
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 operating the check solely the the Neural Engine, we see a greater than 8-fold enchancment during the last six years, and a mean yearly speedup of roughly 20%.
Notably, the rating didn’t double from the A16 to A17 technology although Apple stated 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 a lot 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 (underneath 2,400 factors). Merely taking the previous efficiency positive aspects and projecting it ahead would give us a rating of just about 4,100 factors and a commanding lead over most opponents.
I feel we will safely ignore this chart for the A18 Professional, nonetheless. Latest rumors recommend that Apple will dedicate extra silicon to the Neural Engine and push for an enormous efficiency increase with a view to energy extra superior AI options totally on-device. I wouldn’t be stunned if Apple touted a extremely large quantity for its Neural Engine this yr–over 50 TOPS is nearly sure—and we might see a Geekbench ML rating nearer to five,000.
RAM, 5G, and extra
In fact, 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 essential to iPhone customers, just like the mobile modem.
The brand new LPDDR6 reminiscence commonplace continues to be too new to make it into this yr’s iPhones, however Apple might 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. However, AI fashions are typically very memory-intensive and we might see Apple enhance RAM simply to allow larger and extra refined AI fashions on the brand new telephones.
On the wi-fi entrance, we must always anticipate 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 some extent the place they supply a ok expertise. There have additionally been rumors of an improve to Wi-Fi 7, and naturally, we will anticipate Extremely Wideband, Bluetooth, and NFC options which are just like these within the iPhone 15 line.
