Apple Reveals 5nm A14 Bionic SoC on New iPad Air
And brings machine learning acceleration to the iPad
![Apple A14 Bionic](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/bMWDyegyWyxmJ3tG5WgL4j-320-80.png)
During an online event today, Apple announced its latest silicon, the A14 Bionic. It's built on a 5nm processor and has six CPU cores, four GPU cores and a 16-core neural engine. The chip will debut in the new iPad Air, which will go on sale next month starting at $599.
The SoC has 11.8 billion transistors, which Apple said was quite the challenge, considering you're getting into measurements made in atoms.
The CPU's six cores are broken into four high-efficiency cores and two high-performance cores. Apple claimed the offering's 40% faster than the previous generation and that graphics, via four cores, are 30% faster.
Apple's neural engine has 16 cores for 11 trillion operations per second, and, for the first time on iPad, is paired with a machine learning accelerator for matrix multiplication.
There's also an update to the secure enclave, which now works with a new version of Touch ID built into the iPad Air's power button, rather than a dedicated home button like older iPads.
Additionally, the iPad Air is getting a new liquid retina display, Wi-Fi 6 and USB Type-C.
Apple also announced the dual-core S6 for Apple Watch and moved the 8th Gen iPad to the A12 Bionic, which debuted in the iPhone XR, XS and XS Max.
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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 Mastodon @FreedmanAE.mastodon.social.
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thisisaname Who is making it and how does this "5nm" node compare with other fabs?Reply
Edit seems it is made by Taiwan's TSMC .