The Apple A16 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 ...

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 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max, 15 and 15 Plus and iPad (11th generation).

Design

The Apple A16 Bionic features an Apple-designed 64-bit six-core CPU implementing ARMv8.6-A with two "Everest" high-performance cores running at 3.46 GHz, and four "Sawtooth" energy-efficient cores running at 2.02 GHz, in a similar design to the A15 processor on

iPhone 14 The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus are smartphones developed and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the List of iPhone models, sixteenth-generation iPhones, succeeding the iPhone 13, iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Mini, and were announced during List of Ap ...

. Apple claims the A16 is about 40% faster than the competition, and it also has new efficiency cores, with their big advantage being they use a third of the power of the best efficiency cores of other phones on the market. The A16 contains 16 billion

transistor 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 ...

s, a 6.7% increase from the A15'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 15 billion. It includes an improved neural processing unit (NPU) with 16 cores known as the "Apple Neural Engine", a new image signal processor (ISP) with improved

computational photography Computational photography refers to digital image capture and processing techniques that use digital computation instead of optical processes. Computational photography can improve the capabilities of a camera, or introduce features that were no ...

capabilities, and a new module for handling screen-related features that Apple calls a "Display Engine". The A16 has hardware video encoding and decoding support for the

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 ...

, H.264, and ProRes codec. During the iPhone 14 launch event Apple touted the A16 chip as the first 4 nm processor in a

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

. However, a ''TechInsights'' analysis found that the A16 was manufactured by

on their N4P process. "N4P", as it is called, is a de facto 5 nm

fabrication process Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuits (ICs) such as microprocessors, microcontrollers, and memories (such as Random-access memory, RAM and flash memory). It is a ...

that offers enhancements in performance, power and density when compared to previous products in the same 5 nm family: N5, N5P and N4. In September 2024, TSMC started producing A16 chips in the

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

fab using the same N4P process as the main Taiwan plant.

GPU and memory

The A16 integrates an Apple-designed five-core GPU, which is reportedly coupled with 50% more memory bandwidth when compared to the A15's GPU. One GPU core is disabled in the iPad (11th generation), resulting in a four-core GPU for this model. The A16's

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembe ...

has been upgraded to LPDDR5 for 50% higher bandwidth and a 7% faster 16-core Neural Engine, capable of 17 trillion operations per second (TOPS). In comparison, the Neural Engine on the A15 was capable of 15.8 TOPS. All variants of the SoC come with 6 GB of memory. Unlike previous generations of Apple's A-Series chips, the A16 utilises a vertical version of the A12X/M1 packaging instead of traditional PoP DRAM. This system is based on an epoxy glass substrate with DRAM mounted on one side, A16 SoC on the other side, and presumably via's going through the epoxy glass that connect the two. Due to the removal of PoP wires, the A16's energy consumption per DRAM read/write transaction has been slightly reduced.

ISP and Display Engine

The new

image processor An image processor, also known as an image processing engine, image processing unit (IPU), or image signal processor (ISP), is a type of media processor or specialized digital signal processor (DSP) used for image processing, in digital cameras o ...

(ISP) found on the A16 chip improved its

capabilities. It was designed to handle the higher resolution

image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to form an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they refraction, pass through or reflection (physics), reflect off objects) into s ...

found in the iPhone 14 Pro, being capable of performing up to 4 trillion operations per photo. The Display Engine is a first on Apple A-series. It enables a better functioning " always on display" feature, and handles other tasks such as the 1 Hz

refresh rate The refresh rate, also known as vertical refresh rate, vertical scan rate or vertical frequency in reference to terminology originating with the cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), is the number of times per second that a raster-based display device displa ...

, the higher peak

brightness Brightness is an attribute of visual perception in which a source appears to be radiating/reflecting light. In other words, brightness is the perception dictated by the luminance of a visual target. The perception is not linear to luminance, and ...

of the display and improved anti-aliasing techniques that help smooth out rough edges in the rendering of graphics and images on device displays.

Firmware

New startup and shutdown chimes were added, only being available in accessibility.

Products that include the Apple A16 Bionic

* iPhone 14 Pro & 14 Pro Max – 6-core CPU and 5-core GPU * iPhone 15 & 15 Plus – 6-core CPU and 5-core GPU * iPad (11th generation) – 5-core CPU and 4-core GPU

References