Today, many are talking about 4-nm TSMC technology. Leading brands such as MediaTek, Qualcomm and Samsung have already used this process to produce their latest chips. Apple was also expected to join the party and move to a new 4-nm process for its future A16 chip, however, the company is likely to continue to use the 5-nm TSMC process.
The TSMC roadmap released by reputable analyst Min-Chi Kuo shows that the SoC A16 for the iPhone will use only a 5-nm process this year. The news coincides with a recent statement from ShrimpApplePro, which said that instead of the 4nm process, the new A16 chip will get an updated processor and graphics processor, as well as faster LPDDR5 RAM.
Both Shrimp and Kuo point out that the 4nm process is not much better than the 5nm approach, and any improvements will be minor. However, this statement seems controversial, as Qualcomm’s latest flagship chip, the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, has benefited from 4nm TSMC technology.
Using the same level of manufacturing often limits the potential productivity of generation and energy efficiency. However, the A15 chip still provided a 10% increase in performance and efficiency compared to the A14 processor, despite the use of the same 5-nm technology. Therefore, it is likely that the future A16 chip will provide more power and efficiency than its predecessor.
It is worth noting that the A16 chip will be present only in the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro max versions, and the other two models will have the same chip as last year’s iPhone 13 models.