Apple A14

The Apple A14 Bionic is a 64-bit ARMv8.4-A^[6] system on a chip (SoC)designed by Apple Inc., part of the Apple silicon series. It appears in the iPad Air (4th generation) and iPad (10th generation), 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.^[7][8]

Apple A14 Bionic

General information
Launched	September 15, 2020
Designed by	Apple Inc.
Common manufacturer	TSMC
Product code	APL1W01[1]
Max. CPU clock rate	to 3.0 GHz[2]
Cache
L2 cache	8 MB (performance cores) 4 MB (efficient cores)
L4 cache	16 MB (system cache) [3]
Architecture and classification
Application	Mobile
Technology node	5 nm (N5)
Microarchitecture	"Firestorm" and "Icestorm"[4][5]
Instruction set	ARMv8.4-A[6]
Physical specifications
Transistors	11.8 billion
Cores	6 (ARM big.LITTLE: 2 "big" Firestorm + 4 "little" Icestorm)
GPU	Apple-designed 4 core
Products, models, variants
Variant	Apple M1
History
Predecessor	Apple A13 Bionic
Successors	Apple A15 Bionic (iPhone) Apple M1 (iPad Air, iPad Pro)

Design

The Apple A14 Bionic features an Apple-designed 64-bit, six-core CPU, implementing ARMv8^[6] with two high-performance cores called Firestorm and four energy-efficient cores called Icestorm.^[5]

The A14 integrates an Apple-designed four-core GPU with 30% faster graphics performance than the A12.^[8] The A14 includes dedicated neural network hardware that Apple calls a new 16-core Neural Engine.^[8] The Neural Engine can perform 11 trillion operations per second.^[8] In addition to the separate Neural Engine, the A14 CPU includes second-generation machine learning matrix scalar multiplication accelerators (which Apple calls AMX blocks).^[8][9] The A14 also includes a new image processor with improved computational photography capabilities.^[10]

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.^[11] The transistor count has increased to 11.8 billion, a 38.8% increase from the A13's transistor count of 8.5 billion.^[12][13] According to Semianalysis, the die size of A14 processor is 88 mm², with a transistor density of 134 million transistors per mm².^[14] 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.^[15]

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

• iPad (10th generation)
• iPad Air (4th generation)
• iPhone 12 & 12 Mini
• iPhone 12 Pro & 12 Pro Max

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	Neural Engine cores	Neural Engine performance	Memory (GB)	Transistor count
A14	6 (2+4)	4	64	512	16	11 TOPS	4–6	11.8 billion
M1	8 (4+4)	7	112	896			8–16	16 billion
M1		8	128	1024
M1 Pro	8 (6+2)	14	224	1792			16–32	34 billion
M1 Pro	10 (8+2)
M1 Pro		16	256	2048
M1 Max	10 (8+2)	24	384	3072			32–64	57 billion
M1 Max		32	512	4096
M1 Ultra	20 (16+4)	48	768	6144	32	22 TOPS	64–128	114 billion
M1 Ultra		64	1024	8192

See also

• Apple silicon
• Apple M1
• Comparison of Armv8-A processors
• GoFetch – security vulnerability within the Apple M2 first disclosed in 2024

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. Frumusanu, Andrei (November 20, 2020). "The iPhone 12 & 12 Pro Review: New Design and Diminishing Returns". Archived from the original on November 30, 2020. Retrieved May 19, 2024.
3. "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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. "llvm-project/llvm/unittests/TargetParser/TargetParserTest.cpp at main · llvm/llvm-project · GitHub". GitHub. September 10, 2024. Retrieved September 10, 2024.
7. "Apple iPhone 12 - Full phone specifications" (Press release). October 13, 2020. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
8. "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.
9. 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.
10. "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.
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. "iPhone 12 – Technical Specifications". support.apple.com. Archived from the original on October 24, 2021. Retrieved October 24, 2021.

Preceded by Apple A13 Bionic	Apple A14 Bionic 2020	Succeeded by Apple A15 Bionic (iPhone) Apple M1 (iPad Air)