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Apple did not detail the relative performance gains achieved by its new A15 Bionic SoC during Tuesday’s iPhone 13 reveal, a rarity for a major hardware launch. One report believes the omission wasn’t an oversight, as Apple doesn’t have much to brag about.
While Apple mentioned some aspects of its new system-on-a-chip design, especially improvements to graphics capabilities, executives were silent on raw processor performance. A song was handed out during the iPad mini showcase, with Apple claiming the A15 has a 40% faster processor than the A12 tablet’s predecessor, but the comparisons ended there.
Rumors on social media suggest that CPU numbers were intentionally left out, as it’s not as favorable a comparison as previous Series A introductions.
In a report released shortly after the unveiling of the iPhone 13 and iPad mini, Semi-analysis suggests that Apple’s chip team is plagued by internal problems after an alleged brain drain undermined key executives and staff at projects like A15. After performing a preliminary analysis of the A15’s chips based on the total number of transistors, estimated chip size, and other metrics, the publication found no major processor improvements and concluded that the core Apple’s new generation was delayed until 2022.
Although there is little evidence that a talent emigration has an impact on Apple, the company has lost a number of key players in recent years. Gerard Williams III, the main designer of Apple’s A-series chips from A7 to A12X, left the company in 2019 to found Nuvia, a company that was later acquired by Qualcomm for $ 1.4 billion. Apple sued Williams for claiming that it launched Nuvia while working for the tech giant and recruiting into its ranks, claims denied by the chip architect.
Today’s report also mentions Rivos, a RISC-V startup that includes a number of former senior engineers at Apple.
“We believe Apple must have delayed the next generation of processor cores due to all the turnover Apple has experienced,” the report said. “Instead of a new processor core, they’re using a modified version of last year’s core.”
Alternatively, Apple could have spent its transistor budget on improving GPU cores and silicon designs that improve graphics and camera related functionality. Semi-analysis agrees that the GPU gains are “pretty impressive”, but maintains the theory that a lack of processor upgrades indicates internal problems.
For its part, Apple in marketing material for iPhone 13 Pro praises the progress made with A15, saying it is capable of making improvements to the A-series silicon as it creates long-term product roadmaps. “in a way that no other business can do.” Many graphics-intensive tasks, such as ProMotion variable refresh rates, display.
“This is how we offer features like ProMotion, which have to be planned years in advance,” says Apple. “Our chip team fully understood the needs of the display hardware, display software and operating system teams and took them into account for A15 Bionic.”
A more detailed analysis of the A15 is expected to be revealed after the iPhone 13 and iPad mini release next week.
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