Apple Introduces 7nm A12 Bionic CPU for iPhone XS
At its press event in the Steve Jobs theater today, Apple introduced its first 7nm CPU, the A12 Bionic, for the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR.
The 7nm chip has 6.9 billion transistors. It features a 6-core CPU using Apple's Fusion architecture combining two performance cores and four efficiency cores. The Bionic also features a quad-core GPU that's promises to be up to 50 percent faster than the previous GPU. It allows for tessellation and multilayer rendering and lossless memory compression. The system on a chip also features a new image processor, video processor, a faster secure enclave and more.
It also runs Apple's neural engine, with an 8-core design. The company claims that it can run 5 trillion operations for second, up from 600 billion operations per second on the A11 Bionic, Apple's last CPU. The company claims that the processor will make CoreML runs nine times faster with just ten percent of the energy of older chips.
The A12 also allows for 512GB of addressable storage in the iPhone.
The company also claims that apps will launch 30 percent faster on the XS and XS Max than previous phones.
Apple brought developers, including Bethesda's Todd Howard to demo Elder Scrolls: Blades, and showed off new ARKit developments that the new chip allows like Directive Games' AR Arcade Series.
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Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and BlueSky @andrewfreedman.net. You can send him tips on Signal: andrewfreedman.01
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gggplaya "The Bionic also features a quad-core GPU that's promises to be up to 50 percent faster than the previous CPU"Reply
I think you meant GPU again, or SOC would work. -
eza How many cores does this thing have?! Six CPU, four GPU, and eight core "neural engine" (whatever that even means... it's probably just a fancy name for FPU) which comes to 18 ...Reply -
anthonyinsd face id is so bad, I which morns ganaff thier necks and struggle. even if its does work like it should now, I think there is something awful wrong with bowing to your phone 40 times a day. anyone who cares about security has a decent pin, or very stong pW. I think smart phone are way ahead of they way most people use them for. both Samsung and apple are just doing this whole dog-n-pony show at this point.Reply -
Icepilot Checked the Apple site - all indications are that it doesn't have the new 2-channel, super accurate Broadcom GPS chip - https://www.broadcom.com/products/wireless/gnss-gps-socs/bcm47755#overviewReply
I'll wait. The new chip is a natural, & significant enhancement for this phone. -
stdragon The only iPhone I would be interested in is the smaller Xs, but they removed Touch ID! So if you're driving, you must put your life in danger by looking (Face ID) at the phone to unlock where as I can just unlock with one hand quickly with the more reliable and safer Touch ID.Reply
Do not want! I'll pass. -
mlee 2500 This will be great for making phone calls, sending texts, and checking to see if I'm getting a good deal on a replacement toilet handle at Home Depot.Reply