According to a media report, Apple’s A16 chip should have been much more powerful than the chip that ended up being shipped with the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. However, a design flaw meant that Apple had to change its actual plans at short notice. According to the media report, the process, which is unprecedented in the history of the chip team, is attributed, among other things, to staff fluctuations.
Apple originally planned an A16 with significantly improved graphics performance. Compared to the previous model, its strength should primarily lie in ray tracing, reports The Information and relies on four unspecified sources within the company. However, the chip designers were said to have been too ambitious. Prototypes would have shown a significantly higher power consumption than expected. In addition to a reduced battery life of the iPhone, there were also problems with overheating. According to the report, this was due to a design flaw in the chip that was not discovered until late. As a result, Apple decided to go back in part to the working chip design of the A15. The graphics performance has therefore not improved significantly compared to the previous model.
Apple employees switched to startups
According to the report, the incident should be seen in connection with major changes in the team. Dozens of engineers left Apple to join startups like Nuvia and Rivos. With these, Apple is in litigation. The iPhone maker claims that former employees took company secrets to use for the benefit of new employers. The lawsuit, which was filed in the spring, mentioned more than 40 employees who had switched from Apple to Rivos. Apple has not commented on the anonymous sources’ claims, according to The Information.
Apple’s development of its own chips had attracted attention throughout the IT industry in recent years. After taking over the start-up PA Semi in 2008, Apple consistently pushed ahead with the construction of tailor-made processors and impressed in tests with high performance combined with low energy consumption and low heat generation. Today, these chips are in various versions in almost all devices. “It doesn’t just happen overnight,” said Apple’s hardware boss Hope Giles in an interview with Mac&i in September.
(mki)
