Apple Says A13 Bionic Chip Was Designed With Performance-Per-Watt Focus

[RumorConsumer]

In a feature for WIRED, Om Malik sat down with Apple's marketing chief Phil Schiller and chipmaking engineer Anand Shimpi to discuss the A13 Bionic chip in the new iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Malik first provides an overview of the A13 chip's specs and performance improvements:8.5 billion transistors, an approximately 23 percent increase over the A12 chip's 6.9 billion transistors
Six-core CPU: two 2.66GHz high-performance cores named Lightning and four efficiency cores named Thunder
Quad-core graphics processor, an Apple-designed image processor, and an octa-core neural engine for machine learning that is capable of one trillion operations per second
Up to 20 percent performance increase across all of the main components, including the CPU, GPU, and neural engine
Up to 30 percent more power efficient than the A12 chipSchiller told Malik that one of the biggest examples of the performance increase this year is text-to-speech on iPhones.

"We've enhanced our iOS 13 text-to-speech capabilities such that there is much more natural language processing, and that's all done with machine learning and the neural engine," Schiller explained.

Shimpi noted that when designing its A-series chips, Apple focuses on both performance and efficiency. "We talk about performance a lot publicly. But the reality is, we view it as performance per watt. We look at it as energy efficiency, and if you build an efficient design, you also happen to build a performance design."

The article notes that Apple's chipmaking team will study how apps are being used on iOS devices to optimize future chip designs. "For applications that don't need the additional performance, you can run at the performance of last year's and just do it at a much lower power," Shimpi said.

Machine learning also plays a big role in the A13 chip, helping to manage battery life and optimize performance, according to Schiller. "There wasn't machine learning running ten years ago. Now, it's always running, doing stuff."

Article Link: Apple Says A13 Bionic Chip Was Designed With Performance-Per-Watt Focus

Anand!!!

 

[NickName99]

Android devices haven’t even caught up with the A12 iPhones from last year. The A13 extends that lead.

Geekbench 5:
Galaxy Note 10 Plus: 736/2691
iPhone XS: 1106/2773
iPhone 11: 1334/3517

Aztech Ruins High Tier off-screen:
Galaxy Note 10 Plus: 1058 frames (16 fps)
iPhone XS: 1434 frames (22 fps)
iPhone 11: 1657 frames (25 fps)

 

[639051]

If Apple was two years ahead of everyone on efficiency then they wouldn't be last on battery performance.

More likely iPhone 11 Maxi Pro with 25% bigger battery will catch up with competitors on the next comparison video based on iPhone Xs Max 5h 48m result +25% battery increase so ~7h 15m.

Comparing a device with a battery that is roughly at least 900mAh smaller than the rest would probably account for it dying before the others in this video.

 

[TJ82]

How long until we get an A13X in an iPhone?

 

[FreeSpeech1st]

It's like horsepower per liter in cars...and Apple is way ahead.

It isn’t way ahead as the size of iPhone 11 battery has increased more than 20% and way thicker. So not a huge improvement in performance per watt on A13 and people who fork out 1K might find it even less bargain for the price.

 

[SomeSoftwareGuy]

Still posting these lies? It appears you have no understanding whatsoever of what an ISA is very a micro architecture.

You still running around here like you have any idea what you are talking about too?

 

[mi7chy]

Android devices haven’t even caught up with the A12 iPhones from last year. The A13 extends that lead.

Geekbench 5:
Galaxy Note 10 Plus: 736/2691
iPhone XS: 1106/2773
iPhone 11: 1334/3517

Aztech Ruins High Tier off-screen:
Galaxy Note 10 Plus: 1058 frames (16 fps)
iPhone XS: 1434 frames (22 fps)
iPhone 11: 1657 frames (25 fps)

Useless synthetic benchmarks. How about real world performance like emulation. iPhones can't run them without jailbreak though. Reviewer is iPhone owner but not one platform sheep.

 

[44267547]

The machine learning process is awesome technology. I mean, to see what phones are capable of actually executing besides just ‘performance’, from now introducing text-to speech capabilities is showing you the advancements, alongside Face ID with the machine learning. It basically comes down to our phones learning about us as the ‘user’.

 

[konqerror]

I wonder if he's actually a chipmaking engineer or if he's on the PR/Marketing side?

That was my impression. He worked for several years at Intel, then spent 2 decades as a journalist.

 

[FreeSpeech1st]

All this power to browse social media, watch Netflix, give me map directions and send emails! While the A13 has impressive stats, it seems more at home in a notebook than a phone.

It's great an iPhone 11 Pro has the power cure cancer, but will anyone really tap into that power?

Speaking of power, will the A13 keep Siri and Flashlight from draining my battery overnight?

It probably won't keep your flashlight on for an extra 5 hours. Perhaps, not as good as Phil Schiller claimed on the A13

 

[macfacts]

Apple’s chip design is one of their biggest advantages over all the competition. It continuously gives them a huge edge under the hood.

If apple designed it, why don't they use the same chip in the new iPad? Or is it they only did minor design changes and some other company did the overall design and if apple wanted to use it in the new ipad, apple would have had to pay more royalties.

 

[realtuner]

You still running around here like you have any idea what you are talking about too?

So just to be clear: Do you agree with @mi7chy that the A13 is simply based on A77+A55?

 

[jonnysods]

Apple can easily include this chip into the next 4 generations and all people are still satisfied. Please put your focus instead on a premium iPhone X Mini

Oh man, another name for the lineup they seem to be missing. iPhone Mini!

 

[Romeo_Nightfall]

Apple’s chip design is one of their biggest advantages over all the competition. It continuously gives them a huge edge under the hood.

Nope, its just marketing. Apple has no mobile chip,,huawei has and a fantastic processor, too.
As if any iPhone user cares about the chip performance, when he has a crippled non multi tasking os.

 

[gnasher729]

In other words, it's based on ARM A77+A55.

Please. Apple separated from ARM development quite a while ago. ARM has nothing close.

 

[T-Bob]

If apple designed it, why don't they use the same chip in the new iPad? Or is it they only did minor design changes and some other company did the overall design and if apple wanted to use it in the new ipad, apple would have had to pay more royalties.

New ipad is budget, they’ll use the new cpus later. Has been same pattern for years now.

 

[gnasher729]

It would be nice if our iPhones would be like a full Mac Mini when we dock to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse when we get home or in the office. I bet that will be possible in the next decade. We may get that speech from Apple about "Macs have been leading a secret double life...(again!)".

That depends on your definition of "decade". Are we in the decade from 2010 to 2019 or in the decade from 2011 to 2020?

 

[T-Bob]

Nope, its just marketing. Apple has no mobile chip,,huawei has and a fantastic processor, too.
As if any iPhone user cares about the chip performance, when he has a crippled non multi tasking os.

These chips are designed by Apple, have been for many years now. There is a difference between architecture, process, and fabrication.

 

[DCIFRTHS]

Their own CPU, their own Bluetooth chip and in a year or two a state-of-the-art modem chip stemming from their Intel modem acquisition, all smart moves to control their platform and power utilization.

Would love to see the same attention to detail applied to the antenna design. I’m an amateur, but early reports state the performance is just slightly ahead of the XS and XR series phones. It’s also not up to par with other manufacturer’s offerings. Of course, we’ll have to see how they perform in the wild, but the FCC submissions don’t look promising.

 

[MvdM]

So Wired got the interview? They were the only who said the iPhone 11 pro delivered better photos than the 11, which is not correct.

 

[Arndroid]

All this power to browse social media, watch Netflix, give me map directions and send emails! While the A13 has impressive stats, it seems more at home in a notebook than a phone.

It's great an iPhone 11 Pro has the power cure cancer, but will anyone really tap into that power?

Speaking of power, will the A13 keep Siri and Flashlight from draining my battery overnight?

you even game brah? The power is utilized in a lot of games.

 

[T-Bob]

So Wired got the interview? They were the only who said the iPhone 11 pro delivered better photos than the 11, which is not correct.

While the 11 may deliver similar or same quality photos within its lens range, it does have less flexibility so one could say it does produce inferior photos overall.

 

[gnasher729]

Pardon me - but is this right:

"Text to Speech"

Or should it be "Speech to Text"

I mean - text to speech isn't such a big deal I don't think - unless it really tweaks pronunciation, or something I am not aware of. I believe it is Speech to Text that needs the computing horsepower.

Or are these terms used interchangeably?

Probably used interchangeably by some, but these people would be muppets

Text to speech is the easier task, but there are still some problems, so it's not near a good reader yet. There are equal letter sequences that are different words (A live show about kids who live with their parents). e = mc^2. Chapter I, ii, iii and iv. King Alexander I (which will likely come out wrong, while Queen Elizabeth II has a good chance to come out right). Do you know me friends Seamus and Siobhan? And my nice niece who lives in Nice?

 

[Arndroid]

Useless synthetic benchmarks. How about real world performance like emulation. iPhones can't run them without jailbreak though. Reviewer is iPhone owner but not one platform sheep.

Lol wat

 

[realtuner]

you even game brah? The power is utilized in a lot of games.

Also utilized by other graphically intensive Apps like photo/video editing.