After the A16 chip suffered a design flaw, Apple is fully committed to the development of the A17 chip.
According to the latest information from Tianfeng International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the slowdown in processor upgrades is detrimental to the sales of end products (such as the A16 and M2 series chips), and Apple is devoting most of its IC design resources to the development of new processors to ensure that the world's most advanced 3nm processors can enter mass production smoothly in 2023-2025.
Ming-Chi Kuo said that for the foreseeable future, Apple will devote most of its design resources to Apple Silicon chips made on the 3nm process, which will offer significant performance upgrades and power improvements over its predecessors.
This will be the next top priority for Apple's team. Apple has even put off making its own 5G baseband and Wi-Fi chips in large quantities because it doesn't have enough resources to make them.
If all goes according to plan, Ming-Chi Kuo expects Apple's "world's most advanced 3nm processor" to enter volume production as soon as this year.
After the 3nm upgrade, Apple Silicon chips will have a huge performance boost, including the A17 series used in the iPhone 15 and the new M series chips used in the Mac.
According to previous reports, Apple originally planned to carry out a major upgrade to the GPU of the A16 chip in the iPhone 14 Pro series, but was forced to cancel the plan for a new GPU in the late stages of development after finding an "unprecedented" mistake.
It is reported that the new generation of A16 GPU was "too ambitious" and originally intended to add features such as ray tracing, but because of design flaws, consumed much more power than expected, directly affecting the iPhone 14 Pro's battery life and thermal management.
Apple discovered the design flaws in the new GPU late in development, and had no choice but to use the A15 GPU for a minor upgrade in a hurry.
Not surprisingly, we will see another surge in GPU performance on the A17.
The world's most advanced 3nm processor is here! Apple A17 exposure: pouring resources to build, big performance upgrades
In the same article, Ming-Chi Kuo also mentioned that Apple has stopped developing its own WiFi chip, which means they will use Boardcom's WiFi chip in the next generation of iPhone 15 series phones, and will support Wi-Fi 6E specifications. Furthermore, Apple employs its own resources, such as WiFi chips, the A17 processor, and other chips.
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