The Apple A12X Bionic 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 ...

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, It first appeared in the

iPad Pro (3rd generation) The third generation of iPad Pro is a line of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc. Two models, with a 12.9 inch or 11 inch screen, were both announced on October 30, 2018, and were available to purchase on November 7. ...

, announced on October 30, 2018. The A12X is an 8-core variant of the A12 (four big cores, four small cores) and Apple states that it has 35 percent faster single-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 ...

performance and 90 percent faster overall CPU performance than its predecessor, the

Apple A10X The Apple A10X Fusion is a 64-bit ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., part of the Apple silicon series, and manufactured by TSMC. It first appeared in the 10.5" iPad Pro and the second-generation 12.9" iPad Pro which were b ...

. The Apple A12Z Bionic is an updated version of the A12X, adding an additional GPU core, and was unveiled on March 18, 2020, as part of the

iPad Pro (4th generation) The fourth-generation iPad Pro is a line of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc. Two models, with an 11-inch or 12.9 inch screen, were both announced on March 18, 2020, and released on March 25, 2020. The iPad Pro featur ...

Design

The A12X and A12Z feature an Apple-designed 64-bit

ARMv8.3-A AArch64, also known as ARM64, is a 64-bit version of the ARM architecture family, a widely used set of computer processor designs. It was introduced in 2011 with the ARMv8 architecture and later became part of the ARMv9 series. AArch64 allows pr ...

octa-core CPU, with four high-performance cores called Vortex and four energy-efficient cores called Tempest. The Vortex cores are a 7-wide decode out-of-order

superscalar A superscalar processor (or multiple-issue processor) is a CPU that implements a form of parallelism called instruction-level parallelism within a single processor. In contrast to a scalar processor, which can execute at most one single in ...

design, while the Tempest cores are a 3-wide decode out-of-order

design. The Tempest cores are based on Apple's Swift cores from the

Apple A6 The Apple A6 is a 32-bit package on package (PoP) system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., part of the Apple silicon series. It was introduced on September 12, 2012, at the launch of the iPhone 5. Apple states that it is up to twice as fast ...

, and are similar in performance to

ARM Cortex-A73 The ARM Cortex-A73 is a central processing unit implementing the ARMv8-A 64-bit instruction set designed by ARM Holdings' Sophia design centre. The Cortex-A73 is a 2-wide decode out-of-order superscalar pipeline. The Cortex-A73 serves as the su ...

CPU cores. It is Apple's first SoC with an octa core CPU. The A12X integrates an Apple-designed 7-core

graphics processing unit 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 ...

(GPU), with twice the graphics performance of the A10X. The A12Z has an 8-core GPU, one more core than the A12X, enabling better performance in 4K video editing, rendering, and

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR), also known as mixed reality (MR), is a technology that overlays real-time 3D computer graphics, 3D-rendered computer graphics onto a portion of the real world through a display, such as a handheld device or head-mounted ...

. Embedded in the A12X and A12Z is the M12 motion coprocessor. The A12Z additionally features tuned performance controllers and a better thermal architecture compared to the A12X, which potentially allows for higher clock speeds. The A12X and A12Z include dedicated neural network hardware that Apple calls a "next-generation Neural Engine". This neural network hardware, which is the same as found in the A12, can perform up to 5 trillion operations per second. The A12X and A12Z are 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' ...

using a 7 nm

FinFET A fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) is a multigate device, a MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) built on a substrate where the gate is placed on two, three, or four sides of the channel or wrapped around the chann ...

process, and it contains 10 billion transistors vs. the 6.9 billion on the A12. The A12X is paired with 4 GB of

LPDDR4X Low-Power Double Data Rate (LPDDR), also known as LPDDR SDRAM, is a type of synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) that consumes less power than other random access memory designs and is thus targeted for mobile computing devices such ...

memory in the third-generation 12.9" iPad Pro and the first-generation 11" iPad Pro, or 6 GB in the 1 TB storage configurations. The A12Z is paired with 6 GB of LPDDR4X RAM in the fourth-generation 12.9" iPad Pro and the second-generation 11" iPad Pro. The A12X has video codec encoding support for

HEVC High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In co ...

and

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and d ...

. It has decoding support for HEVC, H.264, MPEG‑4, and

Motion JPEG Motion JPEG (M-JPEG or MJPEG) is a video compression format in which each video frame or interlaced field of a digital video sequence is compressed separately as a JPEG image. Originally developed for multimedia PC applications, Motion JPEG e ...

Developer Transition Kit (2020)

At its 2020

Worldwide Developer's Conference The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...

, Apple introduced the

Developer Transition Kit (2020) The Developer Transition Kit is the name of two prototype Macintosh, Mac computers made available to software developers by Apple Inc. The first Developer Transition Kit was made available in 2005 prior to the Mac transition to Intel processors t ...

, which uses the A12Z processor with 16 GB RAM in a

Mac mini Mac Mini (stylized as Mac mini) is a small form factor (desktop and motherboard), small form factor desktop computer developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is one of the company's four current Mac (computer), Mac desktop computers, positioned ...

enclosure, hence being the first

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

computer to use the

architecture. The A12Z would be used as the basis for the design of the M1, Apple's first in-house processor designed for use in Mac computers. In an interview shortly after the introduction of the DTK (2020), Apple's SVP of Software Engineering

Craig Federighi Craig Federighi (born May 27, 1969) is an Apple engineer and business executive who is the senior vice president (SVP) of software engineering at Apple Inc. He oversees the development of Apple's operating systems. His teams are responsible for ...

commented:

“Even that DTK hardware, which is running on an existing iPad chip that we don’t intend to put in a Mac in the future – it’s just there for the transition – the Mac runs awfully nice on that system. It’s not a basis on which to judge future Macs ... but it gives you a sense of what our silicon team can do when they’re not even trying – and they’re going to be trying.”

Products that include the Apple A12X and A12Z Bionic

A12X Bionic

* iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation) * iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation)

A12Z Bionic

* iPad Pro 11-inch (2nd generation) * iPad Pro 12.9-inch (4th generation) * Developer Transition Kit (ARM, 2020)

References