Finally, iPhone 18 news. That iPhone 17 news was sooooo last week.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone 18 to Use Enhanced 2nm Chip Tech Integrating 12GB RAM
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Just cancelled my iPhone 17 Pro preorder.
They desperately need to bring back the rounded sides. I think many people are sick and tired of the flat sides by now.
We're not that close to considering atomics as the increasingly silly fab marketing names would imply
For example, N7 had 50nm and 36nm gate pitches and fin widths
These are three dimensional objects with room to continue to shrink on each side and other advancements like PowerVIA. There's also no running out after 1nm like some people ask about lol, we just switch to new naming like Intel already will do with the angstrom names with 20A, 18A, etc.
it's probably triple channel or to do with the memory interface. i.e. 3x4GB it would need to be 18GB not 1612 GB?! Why not 16 GB?
...just to sell the 16 GB a year later in the next model? That's innovation!
When will people finally start learning...
Man, this makes me regret getting 16 Pro Max. I could’ve just waited for the 17, or the 17 Pro Max, since it’s supposedly going to be exclusive to the Pro Max? Maybe if I should just sell my Pro Max and get the 16 Pro, since the big size is bothering me
Nope. The flat sides are great. Rounded is annoying and slippery.
you aren't . The only people who know, are Android fanboys and Apple users that argue with them. Literaly 98% of iphone users dont know, nor care how much ram their phone has, as much as they care how much RAM their TV has.
> I could’ve just waited for the 17
so why didn't you ? Iphone 16 has nothing worth while especially from a 14pro. The camera slider is so retarded that if someone said it was a chinese apple knock-off i'd believe them. Why apple deviating from the software and providing more buttons. It's totally ass-backward. Very odd indeed. I'm waiting for a foldable/slim/X-factor iphone 17, but amn't holding my breath
I got caught into the hype and always do a yearly upgrade. Even if the upgrade is so minimal. I just found out that the even numbered iPhones have little differences between pro and pro max 😢
Exactly. This nonsense of people claiming their phones are choking on 8 gb of Ram cracks me up.
Apple absolutely understands how their phones (and macs) perform. But the spec-chasers compare Apple to the android world, where spec-chasing is what they care about, even when it doesn't matter.
I remember when I felt this way. But now, my phone is always in a case, and is a screen I look at. Really nothing more. Bezels do nothing for me, except insofar as they increase screen viewable area.
I'm ok recognizing that the iPhone is a mature platform. I remember when people would go crazy about the new design of the desktop macs. But in the end, now, desktop computers don't need any grand redesigns. They are functional tech now. I don't expect my macbook pro to be turning heads beyond a clean, functional design.
My advice is for apple to properly fix the ios18 and ensure it’s stable first. Let alone talking about rumours of iPhone 18 etc, get your priorities right please apple!
To what? This is the ideal design Apple have evolved to. I don’t see any significant iterations happening in the next decade.
Cool, so it seems like AI is going to finally quicken the pace a bit for base memory specifications in Apple products. This should impact Macs as well.
I imagine one way Apple might differentiate the base and Pro iPhone models in the future is by memory and therefore by the size/complexity of the LLM that they can run locally. It will be interesting to see what advanced AI features the Pro models will get first.
I imagine one way Apple might differentiate the base and Pro iPhone models in the future is by memory and therefore by the size/complexity of the LLM that they can run locally. It will be interesting to see what advanced AI features the Pro models will get first.
My only question is will disabling these AI "features" free up the ram for other uses? I don't even use Siri.
..that said, I can't think of a situation where lack or excess or ram made any difference in my phone usability.
This is why I’m gonna keep my iPhone 14 Pro Max until then cause ain’t no way only 8gb ram will be able to handle such AI complex tasks and advanced capabilities.
Apple's 2026 iPhones will use TSMC's next-generation 2-nanometer fabrication process in combination with a new packaging method that will integrate 12GB of RAM, a reputable source of accurate predictions about Apple's plans has claimed.
In a Weibo post on Tuesday, Chinese-language user "Phone Chip Expert" said Apple's A20 chip in iPhone 18 models will switch from the previous InFo (Integrated Fan-Out) packaging to WMCM (Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module) packaging, while memory will be upgraded to 12GB.
In terms of the differences in packaging method, InFo allows integration of components, including memory, within the package but focuses more on single-die packaging where memory is typically attached to the main SoC (such as DRAM placed on top or near the CPU and GPU cores). It's optimized for reducing the size and improving the performance of individual chips.
WMCM, on the other hand, excels at integrating multiple chips within the same package (hence the "Multi-Chip Module" part). This method allows more complex systems, such as CPUs, GPUs, DRAM, and other custom accelerators (e.g., AI/ML chips) to be tightly integrated in one package. It provides greater flexibility in arranging different types of chips, stacking them vertically or placing them side by side, while also optimizing communication between them.
As for memory, all current iPhone 16 models feature 8GB of RAM, which is considered to be the minimum requirement for Apple Intelligence. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has said he expects next year's iPhone 17 Pro to feature 12GB of RAM, so it could be that Apple will make it a new standard across the succeeding iPhone 18 series.
Having said that, Kuo also believes that only "Pro" models in the iPhone 18 series are likely to use TSMC's next-generation 2nm processor technology because of cost concerns. Meanwhile, it's not clear whether the fabrication tech and the memory size are indelibly intertwined in Apple's plans.
Nanometer Generations
Terms like "3nm" and "2nm" describe generations of chip manufacturing technology, each with its own set of design rules and architecture. As these numbers decrease, they generally indicate smaller transistor sizes. Smaller transistors allow more to be packed onto a single chip, typically resulting in increased processing speed and improved power efficiency. This year's iPhone 16 series is based on an A18 chip design built using a second-generation "N3E" 3nm process.
TSMC plans to start manufacturing 2nm chips in late 2025, and Apple is expected to be the first company to receive chips built on the new process. TSMC generally builds new fabs when it needs to increase production capacity to handle significant orders for chips, and TSMC is expanding in a major way for 2nm technology.
The leaker "Phone Chip Expert" has a track record of accurate predictions. They were first to correctly reveal that the standard iPhone 14 models would continue to use the A15 Bionic chip, while the more advanced A16 chip would be exclusive to the iPhone 14 Pro models. More recently, they were the first source of information about Apple developing its own AI server processor using TSMC's 3nm process, targeting mass production by the second half of 2025.
Article Link: iPhone 18 to Use Enhanced 2nm Chip Tech Integrating 12GB RAM
Iphones need rounded sides. We had the ideal design with the X through 11, then apple screwed up with these last five phones.
I get what you are saying and I feel the same way except for the horrible flat sides we have had lately. Once they fix that we should be good.
I read an article earlier today that said the closest interconnects would be 20 or 30 nm apart. A silicon atom takes about half a nanometer of space, so if you're halving we still have the "true" 14nm, 10nm, etc. before the limit is hit.
Also read TSMC plans to go backside power in 2028 with a 14A node, and intel is going to do Powervia with the 18A node in 2026. I think they both have a good plan for getting that far.
Long term, there are economics to consider. High NA EUV, the latest tool, cost a lot to develop and the machine is the size of a tractor trailer. Once that machine hits its limit, it might be over for Moore's Law.
I read that the founder of the company that made it (ASML I think) was surprised that they were able to pull it off, and doesn't see a better machine on the horizon.
Last edited:
