The Apple A17 Pro is a

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing units (CPU) and arithmetic logic units (ALU) are those that are based on processor registers, a ...

ARM-based

system on a chip A system on a chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines most or all key components of a computer or Electronics, electronic system onto a single microchip. Typically, an SoC includes a central processing unit (CPU) with computer memory, ...

(SoC) designed by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

, part of the

Apple silicon Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture family, ARM architecture. They are used in nearly all of the company's devices including Mac ...

series, and manufactured by

TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC or Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is one of the world's most valuable semiconductor companies, the world' ...

. It is used in the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad Mini (7th generation) models and is the first widely available

SoC SOC, SoC, Soc, may refer to: Science and technology * Information security operations center, in an organization, a centralized unit that deals with computer security issues * Selectable output control * Separation of concerns, a program design pr ...

to be built on a 3 nm process. This chip does not have a non-Pro variant, as Apple moved to the TSMC N3E manufacturing node technology and announced the A18 Series on September 9, 2024 through February 19, 2025, with the A18 and the A18 Pro respectively replacing the A15 Bionic (exclusively on the entry-level iPhone models with 4-core GPU), A16 Bionic (exclusively on the standard iPhone models with 5-core GPU) and the A17 Pro (exclusively on the premium iPhone models with 6-core GPU) on the new

iPhone 16 The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus are smartphones developed and marketed by Apple. They are the eighteenth-generation iPhones, succeeding the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus. The devices were announced alongside the higher-priced iPhone 16 Pro ...

lineup.

Design

The Apple A17 Pro features an Apple-designed 64-bit ARMv8.6-A six-core

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, log ...

with two high-performance cores running at 3.78 GHz, and four energy-efficient cores running at 2.11 GHz. Apple claims the new high-performance cores are 10% faster due to its improved branch prediction, and wider decode & execution engines, also claiming that the new efficiency cores are faster and 3x more efficient than the competition. The amount of RAM has increased from 6 GB to 8 GB. The A17 Pro integrates a new Apple-designed six-core

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

, which Apple claims is 20% faster and their biggest redesign in the history of Apple GPUs, with added hardware accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading support. The 16-core Neural Engine is now capable of 35 trillion operations per second. The A17 Pro also added support for

AV1 AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format initially designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It was developed as a successor to VP9 by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium founded in 2015 tha ...

decoding and USB 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gb/s). The A17 Pro contains 19 billion

transistors A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch electrical signals and electric power, power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semicondu ...

, a 19% increase from the A16's

transistor count The transistor count is the number of transistors in an electronic device (typically on a single substrate or silicon die). It is the most common measure of integrated circuit complexity (although the majority of transistors in modern microproc ...

of 16 billion, and is fabricated by

on their 3 nm N3 process. The A17 Pro is the first SoC used in Apple devices to support hardware decoding of AV1 video.

Neural Processing Unit (NPU)

The A17 Pro's NPU delivers 35 TOPS (35 trillion operations per second), which has remained unchanged in the

Apple A18 The Apple A18 and Apple A18 Pro are a pair of 64-bit ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., part of the Apple silicon series. They are used in the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro lineups and the iPhone 16e, and built on a secon ...

. This is approximately 58 times more powerful than the NPU in the A11, which could handle 600 billion operations per second. The A11, introduced in 2017, was the first Apple chip to feature a Neural Engine.

Products that include the Apple A17 Pro

* iPhone 15 Pro & 15 Pro Max – 6-core CPU and 6-core GPU * iPad Mini (7th generation) – 6-core CPU and 5-core GPU

Comparison of A15, A16 and A17

References

{{Application ARM-based chips Computer-related introductions in 2023 Apple silicon

Design

Neural Processing Unit (NPU)

Products that include the Apple A17 Pro

Comparison of A15, A16 and A17

See also

References