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The Apple iPhone 15 Pro is one of the most highly-anticipated smartphones of 2023. However, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is struggling to produce 3nm chips, with increasing demand from Apple and pressure from its prime competitor Samsung. But amidst struggles with TSMC, can Apple launch the iPhone 15 Pro with A17 bionic by the end of this year?
This article will discuss the situation in detail, with speculations from analysts, leaks, and rumors. Thus, let's see why the Apple iPhone 15 Pro and Ultra might be delayed.
Apple iPhone 15 Pro with A17 bionic: Launch date delay, expected specs, and more
Apple A17 bionic expected specs and performance
The Apple iPhone 15 Pro will be powered by the A17 Bionic chip based on TSMC's 3nm technology. The A17 Bionic is predicted to retain the 6-core design with four efficiency cores and two performance cores. Apple used ARM's v8.6 architecture for this chip, but the company is expected to switch to ARM's v9 architecture for this year's chipset.
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There weren't many changes to the Neural Engine for the A16 Bionic, used for machine learning and AI. Still, the 3nm process node could result in an 18% increase to 20 trillion operations per second from 17 trillion by increasing the number of cores from the current 16.
Apple may opt for LPDDR5X RAM, like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which could result in a 25% reduction in latency. Many users hope that the GPU will deliver a 20% performance improvement. Popular YouTuber MaxTech recently estimated that the new M3 chip will have a Geekbench 6 single-core score of around 3472. We can assume that the A17 score will also be 3000+.
Lastly, the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Ultra models could feature a Qualcomm X70 5G modem. However, Qualcomm's CEO, Cristiano Amon, believes that Apple will use its 5G modem chips in the 2024 iPhone 16 series.
TSMC's struggle with 3nm process node
CPU manufacturing giant TSMC is currently in the process of manufacturing the 3nm node. Apple will be the first company to utilize TSMC's 3nm technology, called N3E. There were rumors that Apple had lowered the performance expectations for the A17 Bionic chip.
A recent report by EE Times showed that TSMC is still struggling with the mass production of 3nm chips. They are having trouble with lithography tools during the early yields of A17 bionic and M3 chips.
Mass production of the A17 Bionic and M3 chips will face additional challenges due to the varying wafer sizes and the number of chips per wafer, adding to TSMC's existing struggles with production. Finally, the pressure from TSMC's main competitor, Samsung, makes the situation even more complicated.
Apple iPhone 15 Pro and Ultra expected launch date
The delay in production from TSMC may cause a postponement in the release of the Apple iPhone 15 Pro and Ultra models with the A17 bionic chip. Analysts predict that the launch of the Apple Macbook M3 may be pushed back to the fourth quarter of 2023 or even 2024.
This is everything we know about the Apple iPhone 15 Pro with A17 bionic chips so far. However, these are all rumors and should be taken with a grain of salt.
