Apple introduces A18, A18 Pro chipsets with iPhone 16 series
Apple launched the iPhone 16 series at its “It’s Glowtime” event on Monday. The smartphone series, consisting of the base model, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro Max, was introduced with a slew of new hardware features and Apple Intelligence integration. This also marked the first time that the Cupertino-based tech giant equipped the series with two new system-on-a-chip (SoC) dubbed A18 and A18 Pro. The company claimed improved performance, better gaming experience and the ability to run large language models (LLMs) with the new chipsets.
Apple Introduces A18, A18 Pro Chipsets
During the event, the company highlighted that the base and Plus models will come equipped with the A18 chipset, while the A18 Pro SoC will power the Pro models. The addition of the A18 processor for the non-Pro models means that the successor to the iPhone 15 (powered by the A16 Bionic) will skip the A17 Pro chip entirely. Apple claimed that this jump would result in vastly improved performance across various resource-intensive tasks.
Both chipsets are built on the second-generation 3nm process, first seen with the A17 Pro. There’s a 16-core Neural Engine on board that’s said to handle AI tasks at 35 TOPS, along with a six-core CPU and a five-core GPU.
Apple claims that the A18 chipset’s six-core CPU is 30 percent faster than the A16 Bionic in its predecessor. It’s also said to be 30 percent more power efficient. Additionally, the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus are said to get 40 percent faster GPU performance and 35 percent more power-efficient performance than the non-Pro iPhone 15 models. These devices will also get hardware-accelerated ray tracing capabilities.
Inside the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, the A18 Pro chipset is said to have 17 percent higher total system memory bandwidth, allowing the devices to handle complex AI tasks. Compared to the A17 Pro, the new SoC is said to be 20 percent faster in GPU performance and 15 percent faster in CPU performance. It is also said to be 20 percent more power efficient.
Additionally, the A18 Pro also brings improved ray tracing with “realistic light sources and reflections” and “more consistent frame rates.” The chipset also powers the Always-On and ProMotion technology on the device. Additionally, it enables faster USB 3 speeds and ProRes video recording.
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