There was some welcome news this week after reports surfaced that Apple had significantly scaled back the capabilities of its A16 chip due to an “unprecedented” manufacturing issue. TSMC is set to begin mass production of the new 3nm process technology that will almost certainly be used in the iPhone 15 Pro’s A17 chip.
Digi Times, reports that TSMC will hold a ceremony on Thursday to mark the start of mass production of its new 3nm chips. Apple is expected to use his 3nm process in his A17 chip in the iPhone 15 Pro and could use it this year. M2 Pro and M2 Max Chips likewise.
according to TSMC, the 3nm technology offers “up to 70% higher logic density, up to 15% faster at the same power and up to 30% less power at the same speed compared to 5nm technology.” The Apple, A15, M1, and M2 chips all use TSMC’s 5nm process, while the A16 chip uses TSMC’s so-called 4nm process. This is just an enhanced version of 5nm technology.
information reported last week With that “unprecedented” failure, Apple scrapped its biggest advance in the A16 chip. Ray tracing, a high-end effect that allows the GPU to “mimic the way the human eye processes light and shadows in real time.” Ray tracing is a staple of high-end games and graphics cards, and he’s one of the first phones to support it.
Apple engineers were “too ambitious in adding new features,” according to the report, which may have caused the chip to draw more power than expected, shorten battery life and overheat the device. As a result, Apple was forced to base his A16’s GPU “based primarily on the design of the chip that went into last year’s iPhone model,” so the A16 chip is a minor upgrade over his A15. did.
3nm A17 is likely to significantly outperform A16. Because the new architecture allows Apple to develop new CPUs and GPUs with faster speeds and higher-end features. It’s not clear if ray tracing will make an appearance, but the chip could be a major selling point for the iPhone 15 Pro. Apple last year split the phone into two processor tiers, with the A15 in the iPhone 14 and the A16 in the iPhone 14 Pro, and is expected to do the same this year.
