TSMC Reportedly 'On Track' to Begin Volume Production of A14 Chips for iPhones Despite Pandemic

[Falhófnir]

Confirmed, A12X actually has 8 cores, with one deactivated.

The Apple A12Z Bionic SoC is just a renamed A12X with an enabled GPU core

We get to learn that the Apple A12X Bionic has eight physical GPU cores, but one of those cores is disabled. The disabled core is enabled in the new A12Z Bionic that powers the 2020 iPad Pro. While there could be several reasons for this decision, the most convincing explanation is that it would...

www.notebookcheck.net

"Yuzo Fukuzaki, one of TechInsights’ Senior Technology Fellows, has confirmed that yes A12X physically has 8 GPU cores.

As for the A12Z, we are planning to conduct floorplan analysis to confirm any differences from the A12X."

Possibly similar to how Intel and AMD bin their chips, manufacturing has been refined to the point most chips are coming off the line with all the cores working, so it's economical to have them all active?

Despite the rumours, I am not sure we will see an A14X this year, has Apple ever dropped an 'X' model at the same time as the standard chip?

I wouldn't be surprised to see "just" a 4G => 5G upgrade and then an A14X in early 2021. Another RAM upgrade to 8gb would be nice at the same time, if the pro is getting "desktop-class" software then it might need the memory.

A9/A9X (iPhone 6s and first iPad Pro at the same event).

 

[EugW]

Possibly similar to how Intel and AMD bin their chips, manufacturing has been refined to the point most chips are coming off the line with all the cores working, so it's economical to have them all active?

Yes. The AMD Athlon II X3 CPU in my ancient PC from a decade ago was triple-core CPU. However, it was actually a quad-core CPU with lots of L3 cache, and one of the cores and all of the L3 cache disabled. Note that in some of the chips, nothing was actually defective. The cores and cache were sometimes disabled just to meet market demand in a certain category. Because of the existence of these, in certain setups one could actually re-enable the CPU core to get a quad-core out of it.

BTW, a couple of years back I upgraded that machine with a near-maxed out version of the CPU (from eBay), which is the Phenom II X6, a 6-core CPU with lots of L3, and nothing disabled. It actually runs really well, over twice as fast as my old CPU, and the machine still remains my primary Windows PC. It's way faster than my 2017 MacBook Core m3 in some benchmarks, and feels similar in basic usage, which is more than sufficient for my needs. All I needed to do was update the motherboard BIOS and drop in the new CPU. Best US$75 I ever spent.

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

I am pretty sure most will defer their purchases this year. People will only buy if their phones break. We still don’t know when this whole Covid-19 pandemic will be over. Apple is really underestimating the gravity of the situation.

What else does your crystal ball say?

 

[Emanuel Rodriguez]

That's not what that post was about. That person was suggesting that Apple shouldn't release any iPhones at all this year, so nobody can buy them this year, because of the pandemic.

oh. Well then that person is a strange person. Heck, people need to communicate more now than ever. If they can afford a new phone and need one, we need to have them available.