Apple officially launched the new A17PRO processor at the iPhone 15 Pro conference. This naming method is quite innovative. It introduces "PRO" into the naming of mobile phone chips for the first time, marking a major initiative in the history of Apple mobile phone chips. This processor is hailed as Apple's most powerful mobile phone chip ever and brings a series of eye-catching innovations.
Over the past few years, Apple has been committed to continuous innovation on the A-series processors to improve the performance and efficiency of the iPhone.
However, recent trends suggest that Apple is starting to introduce differentiated A-series processors between regular iPhone and Pro models. This strategy may be inspired by the iPad and Mac's M-series processors, which come in different versions to meet different computing needs.
The naming of this new processor "PRO" is no accident. Apple never changes product names lightly, and there must be well-thought-out reasons for this decision. iPhone processors in the past have always followed a technology waterfall model, but with the emergence of A17PRO, this model may be broken.
It is inevitable that people will speculate whether next year’s iPhone 16 will continue to use the A17PRO processor, but there is currently no conclusive answer to this question. However, what is worth looking forward to is that Apple may launch a new version of the A17, perhaps called the A17 bionic chip, to continue to improve the performance of mobile phones.
TechInsights believes that by expanding the A-series processor product line, Apple has gained greater flexibility in the design of the iPhone. Different versions of each A-series processor can be optimized in multiple dimensions according to product needs, including cost, performance and power consumption.
This change shows that Apple's A-series mobile phone processors have reached a certain level of maturity, and it also demonstrates Apple's excellent ability to develop its own chips.
Apple is almost the only smartphone manufacturer that can design and manufacture its own mobile phone processors, and they have been continuously improving their chip design skills for nearly 20 years. This also laid a solid foundation for them to launch multiple A-series processors in the future to meet the changing needs of iPhones.
Finally, let’s review the specifications of the A17PRO. This processor leads the market in many aspects.
First of all, it uses TSMC’s 3nm manufacturing process, with a number of transistors as high as 19 billion, which is a significant improvement over the previous generation A16 processor. In terms of CPU, A17PRO has 6 cores, including 2 performance cores and 4 energy efficiency cores, and has made micro-architecture improvements to further improve processing performance.
In terms of GPU, A17PRO’s 6 cores adopt a new architecture design, and the peak performance is increased by 20%. The most striking thing is that this processor implements hardware-level ray tracing technology for the first time, which is faster than any other smartphone and brings users a more realistic visual experience.
In addition, A17PRO is also equipped with 16 neural engines, with a computing power of 35TOPS, as well as an independent video engine and display controller, and natively supports AV1 video decoding for the first time. Finally, A17PRO also supports the USB3.1 specification for the first time, with a transmission bandwidth of up to 10Gbps, providing faster data transmission speeds.
In short, the release of the A17PRO processor marks Apple’s continued innovation and consolidation of its leading position in the field of chip design. The powerful performance and innovative features of this processor will further enhance the experience of iPhone users and point the way for future smartphone development.