Apple A series

Apple A series
Actual generation: 17.
Actual architecture: A17
Technology: 3 nm
Chip design: Chiplet
Instruction set:
Virtualization:
The Apple A processors are intended exclusively for so-called smart devices, e.g. smartphones or tablets. Older versions are also installed in the AppleTV. The Apple A processors are Apple's own development, but are essentially based on a current ARM design and therefore also use the ARM64 instruction set.

ARM processors are found in almost every current smartphone, but Apple has adapted its processors extremely, so that for many years they have usually been clearly superior to the competing products, at least in the single-core area.

Since the 11th generation of the Apple A series, they have had the addition "Bionic" in their name, as Apple has built its own logic areas for artificial intelligence and machine learning into the processors. In certain application areas, the Apple A processors offer extremely high performance, which in the single-core area achieves a performance similar to that of processors for notebooks. This is really remarkable due to the rather low TDP. In the multi-core benchmarks, however, the processors then have to admit defeat to larger processors.

The current Apple A processors have at least 6 CPU cores, in smartphones (Apple iPhone) Apple uses a hybrid structure of 2 fast CPU cores paired with 4 small and economical CPU cores. Until 2019, Apple relied on upgraded Apple A processors with 8 CPU cores (4x large and 4x small) in tablets, but these processors are now being replaced by Apple M processors, so the latest Apple iPad is already based on the Apple M1 processor .

The internal graphics of the Apple A processors are also impressive and calculate in the example of the Apple A15 with 5 GPU cores with 1.5 TFLOP/s with FP32 floating point calculations. This is very fast and is on par with mid-range notebooks. However, the performance of the CPU and GPU in a small smartphone is limited by the passive cooling and the small cooling surface.

All Apple A series CPUs

Processor Generation
Apple A17 Pro Apple A17 Pro
6C 6T @ 3.78 GHz
17.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
16.
Apple A15 Bionic (5-GPU) Apple A15 Bionic (5-GPU)
6C 6T @ 3.23 GHz
15.
Apple A15 Bionic (4-GPU) Apple A15 Bionic (4-GPU)
6C 6T @ 3.23 GHz
15.
Apple A14 Bionic Apple A14 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.00 GHz
14.
Apple A13 Bionic Apple A13 Bionic
6C 6T @ 2.65 GHz
13.
Apple A12Z Bionic Apple A12Z Bionic
8C 8T @ 2.49 GHz
12.
Apple A12X Bionic Apple A12X Bionic
8C 8T @ 2.49 GHz
12.
Apple A12 Bionic Apple A12 Bionic
6C 6T @ 2.49 GHz
12.
Apple A11 Bionic Apple A11 Bionic
6C 6T @ 2.39 GHz
11.
Apple A10X Fusion Apple A10X Fusion
6C 6T @ 2.36 GHz
10.
Apple A10 Fusion Apple A10 Fusion
4C 4T @ 2.34 GHz
10.
Apple A9X Apple A9X
2C 2T @ 2.26 GHz
9.
Apple A9 Apple A9
2C 2T @ 1.85 GHz
9.
Apple A8X Apple A8X
3C 3T @ 1.50 GHz
8.
Apple A8 Apple A8
2C 2T @ 1.50 GHz
8.
Apple A7 Apple A7
2C 2T @ 1.40 GHz
7.
Apple A6X Apple A6X
2C 2T @ 1.40 GHz
6.
Apple A6 Apple A6
2C 2T @ 1.30 GHz
6.
Apple A5X Apple A5X
2C 2T @ 1.00 GHz
5.



Apple A series generation list

Name Generation Segment Technology Architecture
Apple A17 17. Mobile 3 nm A17
Apple A16 16. Mobile 4 nm A16
Apple A15 15. Mobile 5 nm A15
Apple A14 14. Mobile 5 nm A14 (Firestorm/Icestorm)
Apple A13 13. Mobile 7 nm A13 (Lightning / Thunder)
Apple A12/A12X/A12Z 12. Mobile 7 nm A12
Apple A11 11. Mobile 10 nm A11
Apple A10/A10X 10. Mobile 10 nm A10
Apple A9/A9X 9. Mobile 16 nm A9
Apple A8/A8X 8. Mobile 20 nm A8
Apple A7 7. Mobile 28 nm A7
Apple A6/A6X 6. Mobile 32 nm A6
Apple A5/A5X 5. Mobile 32 nm A5
Apple A4 4. Mobile 45 nm A4




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