Apple has announced its upcoming event titled “It’s Glowtime,” where it’s expected to unveil the new iPhone 16 lineup. As usual, this announcement has sparked a wave of speculation, particularly regarding the new A18 and A18 Pro chips. According to a tipster, these two System-on-Chips (SoCs) will be manufactured on independent dies and will feature a reduced cache size to conserve space. Both chips are also reported to have the same CPU configuration, although their GPU core counts will differ.
The standard A18 is rumored to have a 5-core GPU, while the higher-end A18 Pro is expected to come with a 6-core GPU, similar to the A17 Pro from the previous generation. This information comes from Weibo tipster Fixed focus digital.
Earlier rumors suggested that the A18 and A18 Pro would have a larger cache to support an expanded Neural Engine for enhanced on-device Apple Intelligence operations. However, the latest information contradicts this, suggesting instead that the cache size will be reduced.
Notably, since these chipsets are said to be manufactured on independent dies, it implies that Apple has not used binning techniques for the A18 Pro. This is unusual, as many tech companies employ binning to reduce costs. The tipster also mentioned that both versions would have a ‘2 + 4’ cluster configuration, with two performance cores and four power-efficiency cores.
The differences between the A18 and A18 Pro will mainly lie in the GPU core count, with the standard A18 featuring five GPU cores and the A18 Pro, which will be exclusive to the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, featuring six. This approach of varying GPU cores within the same family is not new for Apple, as seen in the A15 Bionic used in the iPhone 13 lineup.
The claims about reduced cache size and independent dies have been met with skepticism, leading to some debate among tech enthusiasts. As always, it’s best to take these rumors with a grain of salt, and we will provide more updates as they become available.
