Apple’s A17 Bionic on iPhone 15 Pro is not the same as the A17 Bionic on iPhone 16

A17 Bionic: Apple is likely to release the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models later this year, with significant design and internal improvements. The basic versions will be outfitted…

By Nivedita Bangari

June 24, 2023

3 min read

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A17 Bionic: Apple is likely to release the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models later this year, with significant design and internal improvements. The basic versions will be outfitted with this year’s A16 Bionic processor, while the iPhone 15 Pro models will be outfitted with the enhanced A17 Bionic chip built on TSMC’s 3nm technology. We anticipate significant performance and efficiency benefits with the 3nm A17 Bionic chip, but a fresh rumour suggests that Apple may adopt a new N3E process next year to keep prices under control.

The A16 Bionic chip in the iPhone 14 Pro variants is currently based on TSMC’s 4nm technology. In comparison to the iPhone 14 Pro models, the A17 Bionic will provide superior performance and battery life due to its 3nm manufacture. However, only the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are expected to get the new hardware. Apple has developed differentiators between the regular and ‘Pro’ versions, and processors are among them.

A fresh Weibo article titled “Mobile phone chip expert” implies that the A17 Bionic chip in this year’s iPhone 15 Pro models would be built on TSMC’s N3B technology.

The N3B is TSMC’s 3nm node designed particularly for Apple, whereas the N3E is used for the rest of the clients. Apple is likely to make the adjustment in order to save money, but efficiency will suffer as a result. In comparison to the N3B process, the N3E process has fewer EUV layers and fewer transistors.

While the A17 Bionic chip will be less efficient than the N3B version, it will provide improved performance capabilities. This opens the door to another problem if the iPhone’s battery life suffers. If the rumour is true, the iPhone 15 Pro models will feature a quicker version of the A17 Bionic chip, while the iPhone models for next year would use a less efficient version based on TSMC’s N3E architecture.

Because Apple has differentiated between standard and ‘Pro’ editions of the iPhone, we believe the N3E version of the A17 Bionic will be included in the standard models of the iPhone 16 series. This is because Apple’s enhanced A18 Bionic chip will be used in the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Apple employed the A15 Bionic CPU with an increased number of GPU cores in the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus to improve graphical performance. As a result, the business launched a considerably improved chip in the iPhone 14 models over the iPhone 13.

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