Apple A14

The Apple A14 Bionic is a 64-bit ARMv8.5-A[5] system on a chip (SoC), designed by Apple Inc. It appears in the fourth generation iPad Air and tenth generation iPad, as well as iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. Apple states that the central processing unit (CPU) performs up to 40% faster than the A12, while the graphics processing unit (GPU) is up to 30% faster than the A12. It also includes a 16-core neural engine and new machine learning matrix accelerators that perform twice and ten times as fast, respectively.[6][7]

Apple A14 Bionic
General information
LaunchedSeptember 15, 2020
Designed byApple Inc.
Common manufacturer(s)
Product codeAPL1W01[1]
Max. CPU clock rateto 3.1 GHz 
Cache
L2 cache8 MB (performance cores)
4 MB (efficient cores)
L4 cache16 MB (system cache) [2]
Architecture and classification
ApplicationMobile
Technology node5 nm (N5)
Microarchitecture"Firestorm" and "Icestorm"[3][4]
Instruction setA64; ARMv8.5-A[5]
Physical specifications
Transistors
  • 11.8 billion
Cores
GPU(s)Apple-designed 4 core
Products, models, variants
Variant(s)
History
Predecessor(s)Apple A13
Successor(s)Apple A15 (iPhones and iPad Mini)
Apple M1 (iPad Air)

Design

The Apple A14 Bionic features an Apple-designed 64-bit, six-core CPU, implementing ARMv8[5] with two high-performance cores called Firestorm and four energy-efficient cores called Icestorm.[4]

The A14 integrates an Apple-designed four-core GPU with 30% faster graphics performance than the A12.[7] The A14 includes dedicated neural network hardware that Apple calls a new 16-core Neural Engine.[7] The Neural Engine can perform 11 trillion operations per second.[7] In addition to the separate Neural Engine, the A14 CPU includes second-generation machine learning matrix scalar multiplication accelerators (which Apple calls AMX blocks).[7][8] The A14 also includes a new image processor with improved computational photography capabilities.[9]

A14 is manufactured by TSMC on their first-generation 5 nm fabrication process, N5. This makes the A14 the first commercially available product to be manufactured on a 5 nm process node.[10] The transistor count has increased to 11.8 billion, a 38.8% increase from the A13's transistor count of 8.5 billion.[11][12] According to Semianalysis, the die size of A14 processor is 88 mm2, with a transistor density of 134 million transistors per mm2.[13] It is manufactured in a package on package (PoP) together with 4 GB of LPDDR4X memory in the iPhone 12[1] and 6 GB of LPDDR4X memory in the iPhone 12 Pro.[1]

The A14 has video codec encoding support for HEVC and H.264. It has decoding support for HEVC, H.264, MPEG‑4 Part 2, and Motion JPEG.[14]

The A14 would be later used as the basis for the M1 series of chips, used in various Macintosh and iPad models.

Products that include the Apple A14 Bionic

Variants

The table below shows the various SoCs based on the "Firestorm" and "Icestorm" microarchitectures.

Variant CPU

cores (P+E)

 GPU
cores		 GPU
EU		 Graphics
ALU		 Memory (GB) Transistor
count
A14 6 (2+4) 4 64 512 4–6 11.8 billion
M18 (4+4)71128968–1616 billion
M181281024
M1 Pro8 (6+2)14224179216–3234 billion
M1 Pro10 (8+2)
M1 Pro162562048
M1 Max10 (8+2)24384307232–6457 billion
M1 Max325124096
M1 Ultra20 (16+4)48768614464–128114 billion
M1 Ultra6410248192

See also

References
  1. "iPhone 12 and 12 Pro Teardown". iFixit. October 20, 2020. Archived from the original on November 28, 2020. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  2. "Apple A14 Die Annotation and Analysis – Terrifying Implications For The Industry". SemiAnalysis. October 30, 2020. Archived from the original on May 12, 2021. Retrieved October 30, 2020.
  3. Gurman, Mark; Wu, Debby; King, Ian (April 23, 2020). "Apple Aims to Sell Macs With Its Own Chips Starting in 2021". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on September 3, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  4. Frumusanu, Andrei (September 15, 2020). "Apple Announces new 8th gen iPad with A12, iPad Air with 5nm A14 Chip". AnandTech. Archived from the original on September 29, 2020. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
  5. "llvm-project/AArch64TargetParser.def · llvm/lvm-project · GitHub". GitHub. Archived from the original on May 4, 2022. Retrieved May 4, 2022.
  6. "Apple iPhone 12 - Full phone specifications" (Press release). October 13, 2020. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
  7. "Apple unveils all-new iPad Air with A14 Bionic, Apple's most advanced chip" (Press release). Apple. September 15, 2020. Archived from the original on September 20, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  8. Ritchie, Rene (September 28, 2020). "Apple A14 Bionic Explained — From iPad Air to iPhone 12". iMore. Archived from the original on September 29, 2020. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
  9. "Apple introduces iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max with 5G" (Press release). Apple. October 13, 2020. Archived from the original on October 13, 2020. Retrieved October 13, 2020.
  10. Frumusanu, Andrei (September 15, 2020). "Apple Announces 5nm A14 SoC - Meagre Upgrades, Or Just Less Power Hungry?". AnandTech. Archived from the original on September 16, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  11. Sohail, Omar (September 15, 2020). "Apple A14 Bionic Gets Highlighted With 11.8 Billion Transistors, 40% Higher Performance, New 6-Core CPU, and More". Wccftech. Archived from the original on September 17, 2020. Retrieved September 19, 2020.
  12. Zafar, Ramish (September 10, 2019). "Apple A13 For iPhone 11 Has 8.5 Billion Transistors, Quad-Core GPU". Wccftech. Archived from the original on October 14, 2020. Retrieved October 5, 2020.
  13. Patel, Dylan (October 27, 2020). "Apple's A14 Packs 134 Million Transistors/mm², but Falls Short of TSMC's Density Claims". SemiAnalysis. Archived from the original on December 12, 2020. Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  14. "iPhone 12 – Technical Specifications". support.apple.com. Archived from the original on October 24, 2021. Retrieved October 24, 2021.
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