With the launch of the Apple iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone Air early this morning, three new chips were launched under the Apple A19 and Apple A19 Pro family. All three chips are manufactured using TSMC's 3nm N3P technology, putting to rest rumors that it uses TSMC's 2nm technology that emerged a few months ago.
Let's start with the Apple A19 chip used in the iPhone 17. It comes with 6 CPU cores using a configuration of 2 high-performance CPU cores and 4 CPU cores for efficiency. This is matched with a 5-core GPU that supports ray tracing and the MetalFX graphics upgrade feature. The NPU is equipped with 16 cores to process various artificial intelligence (AI) inference features. The GPU capabilities on the A19 are 20% better than the A18.
Meanwhile, the Apple A19 Pro used in the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max. It comes with 6 CPU cores using a configuration of 2 high-performance CPU cores and 4 CPU cores for efficiency. This is matched with a 6-core GPU that supports ray tracing and the MetalFX graphics upgrade feature.
The NPU is also enhanced with three times the AI processing capabilities compared to last year's A18 Pro. Apple says the A19 Pro's continuous GPU capabilities are 4 times better than last year's A18 Pro, aided by a vapor chamber cooling system for the first time.
Finally, there is the Apple A19 Pro variant used in the iPhone Air with the only difference being that the GPU only has 5 cores with 3 times better continuous GPU capabilities compared to last year's A18 Pro.