Apple A14 Bionic Processor Explained: World's First Commercially Produced 5nm Chipset

Apple has unveiled its new iPad Air with a new design and form factor that looks a lot like the iPad Pro. Not just that, thanks to the A14 Bionic, the iPad Air is now as powerful and efficient as the iPad Pro powered by the A12Z Bionic.

The A14 Bionic is currently the torch-bearer for Apple that is most likely to power the upcoming iPhone 12 series of smartphones. This is also the world's first commercial SoC based on the 5nm manufacturing process by TSMC.

According to the literature, a 5nm processor will be 15 percent more efficient than a 7nm processor. This allows the manufacturers to include more transistors to fully utilize the available power, thus increasing both efficiency and the performance of the chipset.

According to Apple's presentation, the A14 Bionic's CPU is 40 percent faster than the A12 Bionic and the GPU is 30 percent faster. When compared to the A13 Bionic, the A14 has a 16 percent faster CPU and an 8.3 percent faster GPU, says a report from AnandTech.

The report also suggests that even though the A12 Bionic and the A13 Bionic offered a great performance, they were unable to sustain it for more than two to three minutes due to the higher power requirement.

Tech Specifications

Though Apple hasn't revealed much about the A14 Bionic (regarding the clock speed, and TDP), the company has confirmed that the A14 is a six-core CPU processor with two high-performance cores and four efficiency cores. It has a custom 4-core CPU along with a custom 16-core neural engine.

At the launch, the company showcased a game demo powered on the new iPad Air powered by the A14 Bionic, offering a constant 60fps gameplay. If those numbers are to be believed, then an iPhone or an iPad powered by the A14 chipset will offer great gaming performance.