Apple lifted the veil on its latest iPhone lineup during the “Wonderlust” event. While the standard iPhone 15 continues to rely on the performance of the Apple-developed A16 chip, the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max models will benefit from the implementation of the brand new A17 Pro chip. The new non-Pro iPhone 15s will still feature the A16 chips already in circulation.
Compared to the A15, further development of the A16 was limited to a minor improvement. On the other hand, the brand new Apple A17 Pro chip promises far more significant increases in performance and efficiency. Part of this progress is due to Apple’s collaboration with its partners. Especially TSMC, which contributed to the design of this new chip. This means the A17 Pro is based on state-of-the-art 3-nanometer technology, as opposed to the 4-nanometer process of the A16.
Apple A17 pro: an improved version of the A16?
In fact, the A15 was equipped with a six-core processor. This includes two performance cores and four dedicated efficiency cores of the chip. This is despite a five-core GPU and Apple’s 16-core Neural Engine.
This configuration also helped achieve remarkable performance noticeable energy efficiency in previous iPhone generations.
The A17 Pro, the latest version of Apple’s chip, features significant improvements over its predecessor, the A16. This new chip is Designed with a six-core processorwhose two performance cores are advertised as being 10% faster, while the efficiency cores have significantly improved efficiency.
The Neural Engine, an essential element for machine learning operations, will be almost twice as fast. This could significantly increase the artificial intelligence capabilities of the devices.
Major GPU overhaul
The GPU has also undergone a major overhaul and offers a completely new design with six cores up to 20% better performance compared to the previous generation and is at the same time more energy efficient.
A notable new feature is support for ray tracing, a significant advancement for video game enthusiasts. Apple has announced this GPU update as ” the biggest overhaul in Apple GPU history “.
NavIC, developed by ISRO in collaboration with Qualcomm to integrate navigation technology into its mobile chipsets, has managed to collaborate with Apple for the new A17 Pro chipset and has integrated NavIC into the new iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max. Integrating models seen as… pic.twitter.com/PTAGagFTwA
– The Tatva (@thetatvaindia) September 14, 2023
Another novelty is that the iPhone runs on iOS now equipped with a USB-C port. The silicon of the Apple A17 Pro also supports this connectivity. Achieve USB-C speeds of up to 10Gbps.
Is a new non-Pro version coming soon?
Note that the name “Pro” used for this chip represents a notable change in Apple’s convention. Until now, Apple has typically only released one version of each phone chip.
This happens initially by presenting it in the Pro version and integrating it into standard iPhones a year later. The introduction of the suffix “Pro” opens the Possibility of a non-pro version which could power the following year’s non-Pro iPhones, although this remains a future prospect.