Continuing last year’s two-tier approach, Apple is reserving its fastest new processor, the A17 Pro Bionic, for its iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max smartphones. The new iPhone 15 and 15 Plus get an upgrade as the A16 Bionic trickles down from last year’s iPhone 14 Pro models to the mainstream phones.
Apple touted the A17 Pro as the “fastest chip ever on any smartphone,” and judging by years of speed tests, the company probably is right. iPhones typically are at least a year ahead of competing Android phones in raw processor speed. Apple’s processor clout has let it differentiate its products from rivals, add features it needs, support iOS software upgrades for years and maintain its premium pricing.
The A17 Pro is Apple’s first processor built with TSMC’s 3-nanometer process, a new manufacturing technique with smaller features, better performance and higher efficiency. Competitor MediaTek touted its use of TSMC’s 3nm process earlier in September, but its Dimensity mobile processor won’t reach high-volume manufacturing until 2024.
Using new chip manufacturing technologies is a key way to get ahead of rivals, since the new methods accommodate more circuitry elements called transistors and therefore more features. The A17 Pro has 19 billion transistors, up from 16 billion transistors in the A16. For a little historical comparison, the A15 has 15 billion transistors, the A14 11.8 billion and the A13 8.5 billion.
As before, the A17 Pro has six CPU cores, the main brains. That consists of a pair of high-performance cores, now 10% faster than last year, and four efficiency cores. The latter handle much of the phone’s work, which doesn’t always need top speed but does always need to respect the phone’s limited battery capacity. Compared with unnamed rivals, the efficiency cores offer three times more performance per watt, Apple said.