Apple A14 Bionic
Benchmarks & Specs

The Apple A14 Bionic is a 6-core mobile processor from Apple based on a customized ARMv8 design. It supports 64-bit applications and has a hybrid core layout (big.Little). This consists of two performance cores (Icestorm) that clock at up to 3.1 GHz. This clock rate is very high for a smartphone or tablet processor and is due to the fact that Apple could already use the fine 5 nm manufacturing technology from TSMC for the A14. Apple is thus one of the first manufacturers to deliver chips in 5 nm.

The two performance cores are extended by 4 efficiency cores (Firestorm) in the Apple A14, which work with a clock frequency of 1.8 GHz and are therefore very energy-saving. The lower the clock frequency, the better the wattage-to-power ratio of a processor.

Even though Apple does not publish TDP values of its processors, the A14 is most likely to be in the 6-watt TDP class. The iGPU of the Apple A14 has 4 GPU cores, which allow for a performance increase of about 15-20% compared to the A13 processor introduced last year. It is assumed that it is the same GPU architecture, but with slightly higher clock frequencies due to the 5 nm manufacturing.

For the first time, the Apple A14 processor can handle LPDDR5 working memory. These are manufactured by Samsung and are supposed to fulfill the LPDDR5-5500 specification. Samsung already uses the same modules in its own smartphones. An 8 MB cache as well as a built-in AI accelerator (16 cores) should make it possible to execute very complex calculations almost in real time on the A14. Among others, applications for video and photo editing benefit from this.

The iPad Air 2020 (4th generation) may be the first product to rely on the Apple A14. The chip will also be used in the 2020 iPhones (Apple iPhone 12 and Apple iPhone 12 Pro).

• Advanced 5-nanometer manufacturing
• Efficient Firestorm/Icestorm architecture
• Strong integrated graphics performance
• Balanced energy efficiency