The Evolution of the Most Powerful Mobile Chips: How Apple's A-Series Processors Are Forged!

Apple held its 2019 Fall Conference at 1 AM Beijing time on the 11th. This time, the upgrade of the iPhone 11 from the X to the XS generation is quite significant, with the A13 chip featuring regular hardware upgrades, camera upgrades, the addition of night mode, increased battery capacity, and the pro version standard equipped with 18W fast charging. The screen has been upgraded, doubling the contrast, and the entire series supports dual SIM dual standby.

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Jiwei Network reports, Apple held its 2019 Fall Conference at 1 AM Beijing time on the 11th. Every year, the focus of the Fall Conference is none other than the iPhone. This time, the upgrade of the iPhone 11 from the X to the XS generation is quite significant, with the A13 chip featuring regular hardware upgrades, camera upgrades, the addition of night mode, increased battery capacity, and the pro version standard equipped with 18W fast charging. The screen has been upgraded, doubling the contrast, and the entire series supports dual SIM dual standby. It seems that apart from supporting 5G, this generation of iPhones has basically filled in all the gaps and has kept pace with Android.

Counting down, it has been 12 years since the first iPhone was released. The changes in appearance from the first generation iPhone to the current 11 are undoubtedly huge, and the internal hardware has also changed significantly.During these 12 years, besides the iOS system, Apple is proud of its self-developed A-series processors.

Starting with the A4 processor launched with the iPhone 4, Apple officially embarked on the path of self-developed chips.From A4 to the current A13, Apple has had a total of 10 generations of A-series processors, and today, Jiwei Network will discuss the history of the A-series from ancient times to the present.

From A4 to A13, Apple has not simply squeezed toothpaste with each generation; on the contrary, several processors have had epoch-making significance.

The A4, as Apple’s debut work, features a single-core processor with a 45nm process at 800MHz ARM Cortex-A8, GPU being PowerVR SGX 535, and L2 cache of 640KB. At the same frequency, its performance is better than Samsung’s S5PC110, but its core structure is very similar to the previously used Samsung processors, merely with an increased clock speed; therefore, strictly speaking, this chip cannot be considered a truly independently developed achievement by Apple.

The A5, released with Steve Jobs’ last work, the iPhone 4S, is the first dual-core processor chip designed by Apple. Of course, the changes in A5 go beyond just adding a core; its processor architecture has also upgraded from the previous Cortex-A8 architecture to the more powerful Cortex-A9. This new architecture, derived from the previous Cortex-A8 platform, has higher computing power and lower power consumption.Its GPU part is equipped with PowerVRSGX543+, with a noticeable improvement in graphical performance.It is said that the CPU performance is twice that of the first iPad, and the GPU is nine times that of the first iPad. The A5X is an enhanced version with a four-core graphics processor used in the third-generation iPad, doubling the graphic processing capability of the iPad 2.

The A6, designed by Apple’s subsidiary Intrinsity and manufactured by Samsung, features a unique architectural design, with performance between Cortex-A9 and Cortex-A5, based on a 32nm process. It can dynamically adjust CPU voltage/frequency characteristics, and the GPU integrates a three-core PowerVR SGX 543MP3 graphics processing unit, with performance over twice that of A5.Similar to A5, the A6X is specially designed for the iPad, with increased CPU clock speed and a GPU upgrade to SGX554MP4 with four cores.

When the A6 was launched, Apple began to rise to a position of unparalleled height, as the A6-equipped iPhone 5 outperformed many Android devices with four-core processors in benchmark tests, proving to the world that the performance of a processor cannot be judged solely by the number of cores.

The A7 represents a new height for Apple and opens the door to the 64-bit era for mobile processors, undoubtedly having significant epoch-making significance.

The A7 adopts a completely new 64-bit design, using the Arm-v8 64-bit instruction set, Apple’s own Cyclone architecture, and a 28nm process with a clock speed of 1.3GHz.The performance of the A7 processor is twice as fast as the A6 on the iPhone 5 and 40 times that of the first-generation iPhone, with graphics capabilities 56 times that of the original.Moreover, starting from the A7, Apple equipped its processors with low-power co-processors of the M series, specifically responsible for calculating various sensor data of the phone while maintaining extremely low power consumption.

As the first mobile 64-bit processor in history, it caused quite a stir at the time. While other Android manufacturers were piling on CPU core counts, Apple pointed out a new direction for future CPU development, leading to a lot of criticism when A7 was first released, with many considering it a gimmick.However, facts have proven that 64-bit is indeed a very forward-looking idea from Apple.At that time, people were already editing videos and doing photo editing on their phones, and the performance of 32-bit processors was nearing its limits. Apple decisively entered the market early, and because of this, Apple has always been ahead of Android manufacturers.Even today, while octa-core processors are standard in thousand-yuan phones, Apple is still using a six-core design.

After that, the A8, A9, and A10 further improved core counts and process technology, with processor and GPU performance continuously climbing. Notably, the A8X processor equipped for the iPad Air 2 was the first triple-core processor in the mobile industry, with incredibly powerful performance.The A8X integrated about 3 billion transistors, 50% more than the A8, and three times that of the previous A7, with a clock speed increased to 1.5GHz. Its single-threaded performance is nearly 12% higher than that of the A8, and multi-threaded performance improved by a full 55%, perfectly unleashing the performance of the third core. Additionally, Apple first upgraded the memory to 2GB in the iPad Air 2.It must be said that the performance gap between this generation of iPhones and iPads is very significant.

Of course, there is also the A10X, which, when the A10 Fusion reached four cores, the A10X directly jumped to six cores with a 3+3 design, plus a 12-core GPU. Apple stated that it could easily edit 4K videos, render detailed 3D models, and create and annotate complex documents. Just look at which device the A10X debuted on—the iPad Pro—to understand why it has such powerful performance; it was not called the strongest mobile CPU in history for nothing.Even now, the GPU performance of the A10X still dominates the charts, and its CPU performance is not significantly weaker than that of the A11 and A12.

Fast forward to 2017, a year that marked the entry of both Apple’s A-series processors and iPhones into a new era.The iPhone 8 perfectly concluded the previous iPhone design language, while the iPhone X opened the era of full screens and Face ID.

That year’s A11 Bionic can be described as a performance monster.The A11 adopts TSMC’s then most advanced 10nm process, with 4.3 billion transistors and a six-core design. The large core performance increased by 25% compared to A10, while the four small cores improved by 70%, and multi-performance processing increased by 75%;the GPU is Apple’s self-developed three-core GPU, with a 30% performance increase compared to A10, while power consumption decreased by 50%. Additionally, the A11 was the first to feature a neural network engine with a dual-core design, capable of performing 600 billion operations per second, primarily for machine learning tasks, with the most typical application being its first launch of Face ID and its derivative features of animated emojis.

The deeper significance of the A11 for Apple lies in the fact that it was the most independently developed generation of A-series processors at that time, including self-developed CPU, self-developed GPU, self-developed ISP, self-developed decoder, and so on, including the neural network engine. From that year on, almost all mobile phone manufacturers began to make AI computing capabilities the main focus of their promotional materials, marking the beginning of the AI era.

Last year, with the release of the A12, Apple further improved performance and energy efficiency, which of course benefited from TSMC’s latest 7nm process.The A12 adopts Apple’s self-developed Fusion architecture, and according to Apple’s data, the two large cores improved by 15%, while the four small cores improved energy efficiency by 50%.The GPU uses the next-generation self-developed chip, increasing the core count to four, with official claims of a 50% performance increase, while the most significant upgrade was the neural network engine, which increased from dual-core to eight-core, capable of achieving 500 trillion calculations per second.

Finally, the A13 chip released early this morning features two major highlights: machine learning capability and low power consumption.The A13 Bionic adopts TSMC’s upgraded 7nm process, integrating 8.5 billion transistors. The CPU has two high-performance cores, providing a 20% speed increase while reducing power consumption by 30%;additionally, it has four efficiency cores, also with a 20% speed increase and a 40% reduction in power consumption.The CPU can perform one trillion calculations per second.The GPU features a four-core design, with a 20% speed increase and a 40% reduction in power consumption.At the same time, the A13 also includes an eight-core neural computing engine, with a 20% performance increase and a 15% reduction in power consumption.

In fact, in recent years, not only Apple but also other chip manufacturers have gradually shifted from pursuing performance excellence to pursuing extreme energy efficiency, thanks to the advanced process technology of wafer foundries.Powerful performance inevitably increases energy consumption, and nowadays, if mobile device performance is not aimed at large-scale gaming or multitasking, it is actually excessive. The performance of a thousand-yuan machine is sufficient to meet daily needs, making battery life the most important factor for mobile devices.Fortunately, Apple seems to have realized this and has not only focused on the chip but also increased battery capacity and equipped with an 18W charging head.

From the chart compiled by Bloomberg, we can clearly understand several major events in the history of Apple’s A-series.From A4 to A11, it has only been 8 years, but the performance of the A-series processors has skyrocketed. One cannot help but admire Apple’s self-research capabilities and foresight; it can truly be called a great enterprise.

However, merely describing it in words is evidently lacking in intuitiveness. Therefore, I have collected the GeekBench scores of various generations of A-series chips to visually demonstrate Apple’s formidable chip performance.(Note:Due to different versions of GeekBench, there may be discrepancies in algorithms, so the scores of early chips and those of newer chips differ in certain algorithms. The score data is for reference only, and the GeekBench database is vast; scores are selected from many data points without taking the average.)

From the chart, we can clearly see several important milestones of the A-series processors: A6, A7, A8X, A10X, and A11, all representing a leap in Apple’s chip strength. Based on the A13’s 20% improvement over the A12, the A13 possesses the capability to achieve 70 times the performance of the A4 processor, and this is merely a decade’s time.

People often say that today’s Apple no longer possesses the same level of dominance and influence as in the Jobs era. In terms of the iPhone alone, this is indeed the case; the rise of Android manufacturers and the emergence of Chinese domestic phone manufacturers in the global market have had a significant impact on Apple. However, it cannot be denied that Apple remains a great enterprise, at least it once changed the world.

To leave a significant mark in history is no easy feat, and how many can achieve lasting fame?

Image source｜Internet

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