Apple made some interesting announcements during the “Time Flies” keynote, including the brand new A14 Bionic chip.
Many fans were disappointed with yesterday's Apple event. While most were looking forward to the iPhone 12, only new Apple Watch and iPad devices and software were presented. However, some well-known leakers had suggested that the whole thing would happen, which is why it hardly surprised anyone. But the presentation of the A14 Bionic chip could have been the secret highlight. Apple usually presents new chip generations with the iPhone. But there are exceptions, as we have seen.
A14 Bionic about 16 percent faster than the A13 Bionic?
The company took the time to explain some of the A14 Bionic's specs and features in detail, including the fact that it's the industry's first mobile chip based on a 5-nanometer production process. Thanks to this new ultra-small production process, the A14 Bionic manages to pack 11.8 billion transistors. According to Apple, the A14 Bionic is a 6-core chip that offers a 30 percent increase in CPU performance and features a new quad-core graphics architecture for 30 percent faster graphics performance. However, that's compared to the previous A12 Bionic, which was included in the iPad Air 3. As AnandTech reported in its own Contribution emphasized, this means that the A14 Bionic could be about 16 percent faster than the A13 Bionic, as long as Apple's metrics are consistent across generations.
"Perform machine learning tasks up to ten times faster"
Applying the same math to graphics results in an 8.3 percent increase in GPU performance. The A14 Bionic also features a 16-core neural engine that is twice as fast as the previous generation and can perform up to 11 trillion operations per second. This greatly boosts machine learning. Combined with new CPU-based machine learning accelerators, Apple says machine learning tasks can be performed up to 10 times faster. Cupertino explained:
This combination of the new Neural Engine, CPU accelerators for machine learning, and high-performance graphics processor enables powerful on-device experiences for image recognition, natural language learning, motion analysis, and more.
In addition, the company highlighted a new advanced image signal processor, although details of its capabilities were not explained. Significant improvements in energy efficiency were also not commented on. Overall, however, we can look forward to a new super chip, provided that it is also installed in the iPhone 12, which is of course to be expected - even if official confirmation is still pending. (Photo by Elen33 / Bigstockphoto)
