Apple launched the iPhone 14 Pro with the highlight of the A16 Bionic, its first chip manufactured with TSMC’s 4 nanometer process. Promising huge performance improvements, the hardware piqued the enthusiast’s curiosity TechanaLyewho captured a macro photo and analyzed the platform in all its glory last Thursday (22).
The photograph has low resolution, but it is possible to identify each element that makes up the A16 Bionic. When comparing with the image of the die of the A15 Bionic — used in the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 — it is possible to observe that the new chip has larger area than its predecessor. This increase in size must have occurred due to the increase in transistors.
The A16 Bionic is equipped with 16 billion transistors, about 200 million more than the A15 Bionic. Another change of the new generation is the high-performance and low-power cores, now larger and called “Everest” and “Sawtooth”, respectively, succeeding the “Avalanche” and “Blizzard” that make up the iPhone 14 CPU.
The L2 cache of the high-performance cores had a 33% increase in capacity. In this way, the memory modules of the “Everest” have 16 MB, against 12 MB of the predecessors. Increasing the capacity of the cache modules results in energy savings, as there is no need to communicate with more distant units.
The video below shows that the A16 Bionic is slightly smaller than the Apple M2, the new-generation MacBook Air and Pro processor.
左 M2配線層剥離
右 A16配線層剥離 pic.twitter.com/ylSOCEc1UH— テカナリエ清水 (@techanalye1) September 21, 2022
A curious fact is that the Apple reduced the capacity of the System Level Cache (SLC) on the A16 Bionic. The chipset has a total of 24 MB, while the A15 Bionic boasts 32 MB. Although it does not disclose the reason for this decision, it is possible that the production cost factor was considered, since the new platform is more expensive to manufacture.
While there are big changes to the CPU, the same cannot be said about the GPU. With the same architecture and number of cores, the graphics unit still promises performance leaps over the A15 Bionic. AnTuTu tests showed that the A16 Bionic’s GPU is capable of delivering 28% more performance than its predecessor.
The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are recent releases, but industry sources are already speculating what Apple is in store for 2023. The iPhone 15 Pro is expected to be equipped with the A17 Bionic, a supposed chip that will be manufactured with TSMC’s 3 nanometer process.
- The Apple iPhone 14 Pro is not yet available in Europeian stores. To be notified when it arrives click here.
- The Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max is not yet available in Europeian stores. To be notified when it arrives click here.
- The Apple iPhone 13 Pro is available from FastShop for BRL 6,299 and in Americanas for BRL 7,025. The cost-benefit is medium but this is the best model in this price range.
- The Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max is available from FastShop for BRL 6,699 and in Americanas for BRL 7,311.
