According to Jeff Poe, an analyst who tracks companies within Apple’s supply chain, all four iPhone 16 models will feature the A18-branded chip.
A research note with investment firm Haitong International Securities said this week: MacRumors“We see the A17 Pro as a transitional design and now expect all iPhone 16 models to feature A18, TSMC’s N3E,” Pu said.
In response to our email, Poe explained his expectations as follows:
- iPhone 16: A18-chip (N3E)
- iPhone 16 Plus: A18-chip (N3E)
- iPhone 16 Pro: A18 Pro-Chip (N3E)
- iPhone 16 Pro Max: A18 Pro-Chip (N3E)
Since the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are equipped with the A16 Bionic chip, the jump to the A18 chip will be noticeable for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus.
N3E refers to TSMC’s second-generation 3nm chip manufacturing process, which is more cost-effective and has better throughput than TSMC’s first-generation 3nm process, N3B, used for the A17 Pro chip in iPhone 15 Pro models.
Since the iPhone 16 series launch is still about a year away, Pu is probably making an educated guess here with the marketing names. So it remains to be seen if Apple actually goes ahead with the A18 and A18 Pro branding. It’s still possible that Apple will brand its iPhone 16 chips as the A17 and A18 Pro, mirroring recent years.
Pui first reported that Apple has abandoned its plans for solid-state buttons on the iPhone 15 Pro models. He just revealed that the iPhone 15 Pro models will come with 8GB of increased RAM and that the iPhone 15 Pro Max will cost more than the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
