A17 Bionic: What to expect from Apple’s next flagship chipset
The two most powerful smartphone chipsets of 2023 are yet to come, with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (expected to power the Samsung Galaxy S24 line) – probably in October or November – and the A17 Bionic (set to power the iPhone 15 foreseeable Pro models) are likely to land even sooner.
Not only is the A17 Bionic likely to land ahead of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, but it’s likely to be even more powerful in the past, taking the crown as the very best smartphone chipset of the year.
We’re not sure yet, of course, but we’ve heard a number of leaks and rumors about the A17 Bionic, and they paint a picture of a very capable chipset indeed. Below you’ll find everything we’ve heard about the A17 Bionic so far, along with when it’s likely to land and which phones it’s likely to be included in.
Cut to the chase
- What is it? The next chipset for iPhones (and possibly some iPads)
- When is it out? Probably Sept
- How much is it? It’s in the iPhone 15 Pro, so it won’t be cheap to access
A17 Bionic: release date
The A17 Bionic will almost certainly make its debut alongside the first iPhones it’s included, particularly some models in the iPhone 15 line.
These phones and this chipset will probably be unveiled in September. More specifically, Apple usually unveils new iPhones on the Tuesday or Wednesday of the first or second week of September, which means September 5, 6, 12, or 13 this year. But Tuesdays are the most common, meaning September 5 and September 12 are the most likely options.
In terms of when you’ll actually be able to use a phone with the A17 Bionic in it, that’ll probably be nine or 10 days later, with Apple typically shipping its new iPhones on the Friday of the week following the announcement. So if any of the dates above are correct it would be either Friday September 15th or Friday September 22nd.
One source has predicted that the iPhone 15 – and thus probably the A17 Bionic – could be delayed until October, but we’d still say September is the most likely for now, as no other leaks have yet agreed to this claim.
A17 Bionic: news and leaks
While there haven’t been a huge number of A17 Bionic leaks, we’ve been hearing about them for a while now, with the first news dating back to 2022.
This included an announcement from TSMC (the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which produces Apple’s A-series chipsets) that the next-generation chipsets will be made using a 3nm (nanometer) manufacturing process.
That’s less than 5nm on the current generation and could lead to significant improvements. At 3nm, TSMC and Apple will be able to fit many more transistors into the same space, with reports suggesting that the A17 Bionic could have anywhere from 18 billion to 24 billion transistors, versus about 16 billion in the A16 Bionic.
How does that help? Well, TSMC claims that these chipsets will be 35% more power efficient than the current generation of chipsets, which could significantly improve battery life.
That said, while TSMC manufactures Apple’s chipsets, Apple designs them itself, so it might choose to use the 3nm process to increase power rather than efficiency.
Indeed, major power improvements seem likely – although it’s not clear whether these will come as well as or instead of a 35% efficiency improvement.
A source has claimed that the A17 Bionic will feature a CPU that is 20% more powerful than in the A16 Bionic. That would be a huge leap considering the A16 Bionic’s CPU is only about 10% faster than the A15 Bionic’s.
The same source claims that when benchmarked with Geekbench 6, the A17 Bionic achieves a single-core score of 3,019 and a multi-core result of 7,860. In another benchmark test, spotted by My driversthe A17 Bionic performs even better, with a single-core score of 3,986 and a multi-core result of 8,841.
Almost as fast as M1 in multi core and single core is much better than M1. Crazy resultsMarch 14, 2023
For reference, the A16 Bionic-powered iPhone 14 Pro currently has an average single-core score of 2,512 and an average multi-core score of 6,351.
So if this leak is correct, the A17 Bionic ranks much higher than the A16 Bionic, and the A16 Bionic already ranks higher on Geekbench than any chipset available for top Android phones.
We’ve also heard that the A17 Bionic will likely be paired with a Snapdragon X70 5G modem, which has lower latency than the modem used by the A16 Bionic, but is also more energy efficient and can use AI to boost 5G speeds .
A17 Bionic: Supported Phones
The first phones to ship with the A17 Bionic will almost certainly be the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. The standard iPhone 15 and the iPhone 15 Plus are rumored to get the A16 Bionic instead, which would make for a similar split to what we saw with the iPhone 14 line.
If you want the A17 Bionic without buying a Pro iPhone, you’ll probably have to wait for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus in September 2024.
Interestingly, though, you can get a different – and worse – version of the A17 Bionic with those phones, as a post on Weibo (through MacRumors) suggests Apple will switch the A17 Bionic to a slightly different manufacturing process next year — one that’s cheaper for Apple but could yield a less efficient chipset.