Apple was being rumoured to adopt the 4nm process for its forthcoming A16 processors which again was touted to power the iPhone 14 series. However, that does not seem likely as the Cupertino company is now expected to continue with the current 5nm process. What that means is TSMC’s 4nm process won’t be making it to the upcoming A16 chipset even though other chipmakers like Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Samsung have already gone for the same.
The news is also in line with what a leaker had claimed earlier, that the A16 will be missing out on the 4 nm process. Instead, this year’s A16 chipset will feature an upgraded CPU and GPU as well as a more powerful LPDDR5 RAM to allow for a performance increment. In any case, noted Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo has claimed that the 4nm process does not offer any significant performance enhancement over the 5nm process.
Interestingly, the A15 processor has shown a 10 percent improvement in performance compared to the A14 chips even though both are based on the same 5nm process. In that vein, the A16 processor too is expected to show better performance compared to the current A15 chipset. That said, the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset based on the 4nm process has come to offer markedly better performance over its predecessor.
In any case, rumors on this have also pointed out that the A16 processors will only be powering the two iPhone Pro models, the iPhone 14 Pro and the iPhone 14 Pro Max. The base two models, the iPhone 14 and the iPhone 14 Max will continue to be powered by the A15 chipset, the same that currently powers the iPhone 13 lineup.
