Apple chipmaking stumbles led to less impressive iPhone 14 Pro
A mistake in developing the A16 Bionic may have led Apple to release a less performative processor for the iPhone 14 Pro, which may be indicative of issues within Apple's chip team.
The iPhone 14 Pro could have been even more capable, says report
The iPhone 14 Pro uses the A16 Bionic, and despite being one of the most powerful chipsets in a smartphone, it could have been better. Benchmarks show a modest increase in performance year-over-year, and new information suggests it could have been a bigger jump.
According to The Information, Apple's chipmaking team has been going through a lot of internal turmoil. This may have led to the A16 Bionic having a significant change introduced late in development -- at least according to four anonymous sources.
The report says that Apple had planned a generational leap for the A16 Bionic, but early prototypes drew more power than what the company had expected based on software simulations. The high power draw could have affected battery life and made the device run too hot.
Due to this discovery late in development, the A16 Bionic had to be built based on the graphics used in the A15. Originally, the A16 would have introduced Ray Tracing capabilities to iPhone software.
The A16 Bionic had been rumored to be being developed on the 4nm process but was released on the 5nm process. This change seems to corroborate The Information's story, though it was only a rumor.
Apple also oddly released the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max with the A15 Bionic, not the A16. If the A16 didn't differentiate enough from the A15, it could explain Apple's decision to reuse the chip.
"Apple is still above market expectations for generation-over-generation performance for its chips. However, that has been slowing," said Ian Cutress, chief analyst at More Than Moore, a semiconductor analyst firm. "Given where they stand in terms of people and manufacturing, it's a question mark whether they'll be able to maintain their rate of growth."
The Information continues its story with a history of lawsuits and employee departures that have affected Apple's chipmaking team. Johny Srouji continues to be in charge, however, and Apple hasn't commented on any of these allegations publicly.
Read on AppleInsider
The iPhone 14 Pro could have been even more capable, says report
The iPhone 14 Pro uses the A16 Bionic, and despite being one of the most powerful chipsets in a smartphone, it could have been better. Benchmarks show a modest increase in performance year-over-year, and new information suggests it could have been a bigger jump.
According to The Information, Apple's chipmaking team has been going through a lot of internal turmoil. This may have led to the A16 Bionic having a significant change introduced late in development -- at least according to four anonymous sources.
The report says that Apple had planned a generational leap for the A16 Bionic, but early prototypes drew more power than what the company had expected based on software simulations. The high power draw could have affected battery life and made the device run too hot.
Due to this discovery late in development, the A16 Bionic had to be built based on the graphics used in the A15. Originally, the A16 would have introduced Ray Tracing capabilities to iPhone software.
The A16 Bionic had been rumored to be being developed on the 4nm process but was released on the 5nm process. This change seems to corroborate The Information's story, though it was only a rumor.
Apple also oddly released the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max with the A15 Bionic, not the A16. If the A16 didn't differentiate enough from the A15, it could explain Apple's decision to reuse the chip.
"Apple is still above market expectations for generation-over-generation performance for its chips. However, that has been slowing," said Ian Cutress, chief analyst at More Than Moore, a semiconductor analyst firm. "Given where they stand in terms of people and manufacturing, it's a question mark whether they'll be able to maintain their rate of growth."
The Information continues its story with a history of lawsuits and employee departures that have affected Apple's chipmaking team. Johny Srouji continues to be in charge, however, and Apple hasn't commented on any of these allegations publicly.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Fire Johny Srouji NOW!
Just getting ahead of the gang. /s
trust the process.
A full node change is essentially the Moore's law doubling of transistors, give or take. Chip vendors would typically have to change their designs to adapt to the new node, such as going from TSMC 5nm to 3nm. With half node changes, they can typically keep the design rules for 5nm, but enjoy something like a 10 to 20% increase in transistor count, 5 to 15% power reduction, or some combination. I suppose TSMC 4nm can be considered an enhanced TSMC 5nm, with better transistor density, but just call it TSMC 4nm.
Calling it 5nm makes it sound like there isn't improvement, and that's factually incorrect. It's a half node improvement that TSMC has done for basically a decade now.
If in 2021, Apple was expecting TSMC 3nm to be in mass production by summer of 2022, which would be in time for fall iPhone shipments, they would have designed a chip given TSMC 3nm capabilities, like hardware ray tracing features. Once TSMC and Apple saw that 3nm was going to make it on time, and they would have figured it out in 2021, they would fallback to the half node step, TSMC 4nm, and get the typical half node improvements, like 10 to 15% performance, 10 to 15% less power, some combination.
Strategically, I kind of think the Jade C die (M1 Max), Jade C chop (M1 Pro), Jade 2C (M1 Ultra), and the failed Jade 4C was a mistake. It didn't scale in the manner that buyers wanted. The M1 Max and on down appear fine. The M1 Ultra and on up? There have been issues. Apple's designed itself into a box that can't get them to ship higher end machines. That's a bigger issue than TSMC being late.
"Mr. Srouji is known for demanding hard truths with the axiom that his meetings focus on problems, not successes."
I have wouldn’t be surprised that in the supply constrained environment of most of last year Apple did not go for a greatly faster chip. It didn’t have to either, with the last three generations still outperforming competitors.
Maybe the shenanigans in the chip design team is simply that, bad management and unresolved staffing issues. So Execs turfed the managers.
Apple's CPU team is tiny compared to Intel's or AMD's. Generational Apple Silicon speed improvements are nothing like they were, and in many ways the M2 was a disappointment. I don't think we're going to see Apple staying so far ahead of Intel on the performance front. Power consumption wise though Apple will always have the lead as they don't have a huge amount of silicon dedicated to RISCifying the complex CISC x86 instructions.
So given that Apple’s teams now have multiple generations of chip and hardware design experience to draw upon, and a culture that doesn’t rest, why should anyone think this is a screw-up, rather than the natural design process and temporary technological limitations? I’m sure we’re all well aware just how difficult it is to create and implement leaps in chip tech, and that one of the keys to success has always been in how well the software leverages those advances into significant improvements for end-users.
I’m genuinely… mystified… by the doom-seekers that look for any sign of internal dysfunction to point to as a sign of the impending apocalyptic collapse of Apple or its desicion-making. It’s been decades since Apple was “beleaguered” to death. Why do folks still fall into this mental trap? It’s practically a TV Trope. (In fact, the second I post this, I’m going to look over on the site.)
Sincerely,
Really Confused Reader
PS - I own a 14 Pro Max and from my point of view it’s no less impressive than other generations have been. The experience of using is full of both delight, productivity, and creativity. I’m one of those folks that flips their phone every generation, as it’s the computer I get the most work out of besides my work machine. Other family members updating from the 11 Pro Max and the 12 have also been suitably happy with their purchase decision.
Also, per the odd comments on the M1 and M2, we have multiple machines here for work that span both Mac and PC generations, including the latest. The M-series are machines consistently the best performing on almost every metric, and the most pleasant to use. From a real world use pov, I just don’t get the comments. (Or the idea that a product could be ‘less impressive’ if no company has released something more impressive. It’s like comparing an athlete’s performance to what they’ve done in the past — circumstances are completely different and variables are hard to control. The only metric that counts is if they win. It’s nice to set a record, but that in no way detracts from the accomplishment of winning against other elite athletes. Unless you’re truly jaded, I guess.