It is that time of the year when Apple introduces its brand new set of flagship phones. And even though COVID-19 has delayed the launch, rumour mill has it that the world will finally get to see the latest iPhone 12 in September itself.
And as is usually the case, we have started getting some leaks and rumours on the processing power of the upcoming iPhone. We already know that the new iPhone 12 will carry the A14 Bionic chipset. New leaks however suggest that a potential 15% boost in performance or a 30% power efficiency upgrade could be coming up in the new chipset.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), responsible for making the Apple A-series chipsets, had confirmed earlier that they are producing 5nm process nodes for a device set to launch in fall this year, which is likely to be the iPhone 12. A process node is a specific semiconductor manufacturing process. Usually, the smaller the process node means producing chips that are faster and more power-efficient.
The A13 chip, which powers the iPhone 11 is based on a 7nm process node. The A14 chip based on a smaller 5nm node would make it Apple’s fastest and most power-efficient mobile processor ever. The extra performance can give a better Augmented reality experience while an increased power-efficiency could make up for Apple’s smaller batteries. Jason Cross from MacWorld estimated that iPhone 12 could have comparable processing power to a 15 inch Macbook Pro.
At TSMC’s annual Technology Symposium, Anandtech said, “TSMC has been mass producing N5 for several months now and as we are expecting silicon (chip) shipping to customers at this moment with consumer products shipping this year – Apple’s next generation SoCs likely being the first candidates for the node.”
The TSMC put out a table representing the comparison between the N5 (5nm) which will power iPhone 12 and N7 (7nm) that powers iPhone 10 and 11. This table indicates that the new chip will either be 15% faster and have equal power consumption or will have equal performance and will be 30% less power consuming. Going by Apple’s poor batteries, they will opt for the latter, helping them increase their new flagship device’s battery life. The new iPhone series is also speculated to support 5G. These new updates in Apple’s A14 Bionic chip can pose a heavy challenge to the newly launched Samsung Galaxy Note 20 series that is powered by Exynos 990 processor.
Apple is gearing up for the launch of the new device, and is reportedly planning to open up some of its stores in the U.S. that had been shut down previously after COVID 19 made a resurgence in the country.
