Jeff Pu, a technical analyst at Hong Kong investment company Haitong International Securities, said that iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus will be equipped with 8GB of memory and an A17 bionic chip manufactured using TSMC’s N3E process.
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In a note to investors, Pu noted that standard iPhone models will have significantly more memory next year and will switch to LPDDR5 memory. Since 2021’s iPhone 13, Apple’s standard iPhone models have had 6GB of memory. iPhone15 and iPhone15Plus are expected to continue this trend. The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are expected to be the first iPhones equipped with 8GB of memory, which means that the A17 Bionic chip and 8GB of memory on the 2023 Pro models will be gradually applied to the standard models a year later.
Pu added that the A17 and A18 Bionic chips used in the iPhone 16 series will be manufactured using TMSC's N3E process, which is its enhanced 3-nanometer node. The A17 Bionic chip used in the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max is expected to be Apple's first chip manufactured using a 3-nanometer manufacturing process. Compared with the 5-nanometer technology used in the A14, A15 and A16 chips, performance and efficiency will be significantly improved.
According to reports, the A17 Bionic chip used in the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max will be manufactured using TSMC’s N3B process, but according to Pu, Apple will switch to the N3E process when the chip is used in the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus next year.
N3B is the original 3nm node created by TSMC in partnership with Apple. N3E is the simpler, more accessible node and will be used by most other TSMC customers. Compared with N3B, N3E has fewer EUV layers and lower transistor density, so there is a compromise in efficiency, but the process can provide better performance. N3B also entered mass production earlier than N3E, but its yield rate is much lower. N3B was actually designed as an experimental node and is incompatible with TSMC's subsequent processes (including N3P, N3X, and N3S), which means Apple needs to redesign future chips to take advantage of TSMC's advanced technology.
Interestingly, this coincides with a rumor posted on Weibo in June. The move is said to be a cost-cutting measure that may come at the expense of efficiency. At the time, it was thought that Apple was unlikely to make such drastic changes to the A17 Bionic chip. The A15 Bionic chip used in iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus is higher grade than the A15 chip used in iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini, with one more GPU core. Therefore, although it looks like the same chip in appearance, some cross-generation differences are not impossible, but this is actually retaining the same name on a fundamentally different chip.
It is believed that Apple originally planned to use N3B for the A16 Bionic chip, but was not ready in time and had to switch to N4. It's possible that Apple will use the N3 BC CPU and GPU core design originally designed for the A16 Bionic for the original A17 chip, and then switch to the original A17 design of N3E later in 2024.