Apple A12 Bionic

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The Apple A12 Bionic is a 64-bit ARM-based single-chip system (SoC) developed by Apple . It first appeared in the iPhone XR , iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max , which were released on September 12, 2018. It has two high-performance cores that, according to Apple, are 15% faster than the ones in the Apple A11 Bionic and up to 40% according to measurements, as well as four energy-efficient cores that use up to 50% less power than the energy-efficient cores in the A11 Bionic ; all cores can be active at the same time. The successor is the Apple A13 Bionic , the predecessor of the Apple A11 Bionic.

design

A12

The A12 Bionic has a 64-bit ARMv8.3-A six-core CPU developed by Apple with two high-performance cores, called Vortex, and clocking at up to 2.49 GHz, and four energy-efficient cores, called Tempest, with up to clock at 1.59 GHz. The Vortex cores each have 128 KB L1I and L1D available, the shared L2 is 8 MB in size. The Tempest cores each have 32 KB L1I and L1D as well as a shared 2 MB L2 available.

The A12 Bionic also integrates a quad-core graphics processor (GPU) developed by Apple with up to 50% better graphics performance than the three-core graphics processor in the A11 Bionic.

The A12 Bionic contains dedicated neural network hardware, which Apple calls the Next-Generation Neural Engine . This neural network hardware has eight cores and can perform up to 5 trillion operations per second.

The M12 motion coprocessor is integrated in the SoC and a system cache available to the entire SoC is 8 MB in size.

The A12 Bionic is manufactured at TSMC in a 7 nm FinFET process and contains 6.9 billion transistors. The SoC with the designation APL1W81 forms together with the LPDDR4X-RAM a PoP (Package-on-Package), manufactured in TSMC's InFO-Packaging process. There is a variant of the A12 with 3 GB of RAM , built into the iPhone XR, the iPad Air (2019) and the iPad mini (2019), and a variant with 4 GB, built into the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. The memory interface is 64 bits wide.

A12X

Compared to the A12 Bionic, Apple has increased the number of Vortex cores in the A12X Bionic from two to four and the number of GPU shader clusters from four to seven; the existing eighth cluster is deactivated. The externally connected 4 GB or 6 GB RAM is accessed via a 128-bit bus. The SoC bears the designation APL1083 , is also manufactured at TSMC in the 7 nm FinFET process and contains 10 billion transistors; it sits with the two RAM modules on a common carrier (2.5D packaging).

A12Z

The Apple A12Z Bionic is a 64-bit ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) based on the A12X. It first appeared on the iPad Pro (March 2020). The chip offers improved graphics performance by enabling the eighth GPU core on the otherwise identical die to that of the A12X. This enables improved usability for tasks such as 4K video editing, rendering and AR (augmented reality) functions. The packaging is the same as with the A12X, but the A12Z Bionic is only combined with 6 GB LPDDR4X-RAM. The designation APL1083 was retained.

In June 2020, Apple announced a Developer Transition Kit that combines an A12Z with 16 GB of RAM; the operating system will be macOS 11.

Products with a built-in A12 bionic chip

Products with built-in A12X-Bionic-Chip

Products with built-in A12Z bionic chip

  • iPad Pro 11 "(2nd generation)
  • iPad Pro 12.9 "(4th generation)

Individual evidence

  1. The iPhone XS & XS Max Review: Unveiling the Silicon Secrets , anandtech.com on October 5, 2018
  2. Apple A12 Bionic , Apple on September 12, 2018
  3. iPad Pro Specifications. Accessed November 2, 2019 (German).
  4. iPad Pro - Apple (DE). Retrieved on March 18, 2020 (German).