Apple’s chip supplier TSMC has reportedly started manufacturing the A15 Bionic chips designed to go into the iPhone 13 later this year. Apple’s yearly refresh to the iPhone line-up will see an improved chipset under the hood. Here’s what we know.
A15 Bionic Will Be Based on the 5nm Process
The A14 Bionic processor that debut last year in the iPad Air, followed by the iPhone 12 series, was a massive increment over the A13 Bionic. The A14 bionic set standards for the entire industry to follow suit, with Qualcomm and Samsung releasing their own new chipsets in the market.
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The A14 Bionic chip is based on the 5nm manufacturing process rather than the previous standard of 7nm. The A14 Bionic uses a 6-core set-up with 2 high-performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. In addition to that, it uses a 4 core GPU and 16 core neural engine committed entirely to AI.
The A15 Bionic is believed to be based on the same 5nm hexa-core design. However, Apple will be engineering it to a greater extent to achieve higher performance and efficiency. Improvements can be seen in the forms of some Interprocess Communication (IPC) gains, increased efficiencies, higher-powered GPU, a better ISP and developments in the field of AI.
According to TrendForce, the next generation of the smartphone processor, which is being referred to as the A15 Bionic, will feature advanced N5P nodes. The Taiwanese company claims that the advanced nodes will deliver higher performance and efficiency.
Major improvements will, however be seen in the chipset that goes into production in 2022 when TSMC will start producing 4nm chipsets. The 4nm chipsets will see another sizable jump in terms of performance and efficiency gains.
TSMC is also heavily “booked” to manufacture Apple’s M1 chips and future alterations upgrades that are expected to be seen in various new Apple products such as the new Mac mini and the new MacBook Pro models.