Most iPhone users probably don’t know which A-series chipset powers their handsets, nor do they care. How else can you account for the relative silence and lack of outrage over Apple’s rumored plan to reuse the A15 Bionic chipset on next year’s non-Pro iPhone 14 units. That is the 5nm chip that is currently found inside all iPhone 13 models whether Pro or non-Pro.
When it comes to Apple’s chipset strategy for the iPhone 14 non-Pro models, where is the outrage?
In other words, those who won’t pay up for the more expensive iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models and would rather buy the cheaper iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus (or Max, whatever name it is given) will be using the same chip that is being used on all iPhone 13 models this year. In other words, consumers will be buying a phone powered by the last generation chipset and could be paying more for it.
The iPhone 14 Pro and non-Pro models will be powered by different chipsets
Would you pay a new car price for an auto driven by the last generation engine? Of course not. And while the A15 Bionic is a great chip, it doesn’t mean that you should pay a higher price for last year’s processing power.
Apple doesn’t usually go three years in a row using the same process node, although it will do so with TSMC’s 5nm components. The A14 Bionic was made by TSMC using its first-generation 5nm node while the A15 Bionic is made using the second-gen 5nm node. The A16 Bionic will be produced using uses the new third-generation 5nm node.
While all iPhone 14 models could have 6GB of RAM, only the Pro models will use the faster LPDDR5 version
The lower the process node number, the larger the number of transistors that can fit inside a chip. And that’s important because the higher a chip’s transistor count, the more powerful and energy-efficient the chip is. Also expected to help raise the performance of the iPhone 14 Pro line is the use of the faster LPDDR5 RAM memory compared to the LPDDR4 memory that the non-Pro models will still use. All of the handsets will feature 6GB of RAM.
And the iPhone 14 Pro series (and possibly the non-Pro models) should see an upgrade to the Qualcomm Snapdragon X65 modem. It supports a higher theoretical peak speed of 10Gbps which will no doubt go untested on any iPhone 14 Pro model this year or next. You won’t find a cellular network downloading data that fast, but the new modem chip is said to be better at locking in on signals and will use less battery power.
