Apple A17
System-on-a-chip designed by Apple Inc
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Apple A17 Pro is a 64-bit ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., part of the Apple silicon series, and manufactured by TSMC.[5] It is used in the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad Mini (7th generation)[6] models[2][7] and is the first widely available SoC to be built on a 3 nm process.[8] This chip does not have a non-Pro variant, as Apple moved to the TSMC N3E manufacturing node technology and announced the A18 Series on September 9, 2024 through February 19, 2025, with the A18 and the A18 Pro respectively replacing the A15 Bionic (exclusively on the entry-level iPhone models with 5-core GPU), A16 Bionic (exclusively on the standard iPhone models with 5-core GPU) and the A17 Pro (exclusively on the premium iPhone models with 6-core GPU) on the new iPhone 16 lineup.[9]
| |
| General information | |
|---|---|
| Launched | September 12, 2023 |
| Designed by | Apple Inc. |
| Common manufacturer | |
| Product code | APL1V02 |
| Max. CPU clock rate | to 3.78 GHz[2] |
| Physical specifications | |
| Transistors |
|
| Cores |
|
| Memory (RAM) |
|
| GPU | Apple-designed 5- or 6- core GPU |
| Cache | |
| L1 cache | 320 KB per P-core (192 KB instruction + 128 KB data) 224 KB per E-core (128 KB instruction + 96 KB data) |
| L2 cache | 16 MB (performance cores) 4 MB (efficiency cores) |
| Last level cache | 24 MB (system level cache) |
| Architecture and classification | |
| Application | Mobile (iPhone 15 Pro, iPad Mini (7th generation)) |
| Technology node | 3 nm (TSMC N3) |
| Instruction set | ARMv8.6-A[4] |
| Products, models, variants | |
| Variant | |
| History | |
| Predecessor | Apple A16 Bionic |
| Successors | Apple A18 Pro (iPhone 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max) |
Design
The Apple A17 Pro features an Apple-designed 64-bit ARMv8.6-A six-core CPU with two high-performance cores running at 3.78 GHz, and four energy-efficient cores running at 2.11 GHz.[2] Apple claims the new high-performance cores are 10% faster due to its improved branch prediction, and wider decode & execution engines, also claiming that the new efficiency cores are faster and 3x more efficient than the competition.[7] The amount of RAM has increased from 6 GB to 8 GB.[10]
The A17 Pro integrates a new Apple-designed six-core GPU, which Apple claims is 20% faster and their biggest redesign in the history of Apple GPUs, with added hardware accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading support. The 16-core Neural Engine is now capable of 35 trillion operations per second. The A17 Pro also added support for AV1 decoding and USB 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gb/s).[11] The A17 Pro contains 19 billion transistors, a 19% increase from the A16's transistor count of 16 billion, and is fabricated by TSMC on their 3 nm N3 process.[7]
The A17 Pro is the first SoC used in Apple devices to support hardware decoding of AV1 video.[12]
Neural Processing Unit (NPU)
The A17 Pro's NPU delivers 35 TOPS (35 trillion operations per second), which has remained unchanged in the Apple A18. This is approximately 58 times more powerful than the NPU in the A11, which could handle 600 billion operations per second. The A11, introduced in 2017, was the first Apple chip to feature a Neural Engine.[13]
| Chip | Power (TOPS) |
Year | Power relative to the A17 Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| A11 Bionic | 0.6 | 2017 | 1.71% |
| A12 Bionic | 5.0 | 2018 | 14.29% |
| A13 Bionic | 6.0 | 2019 | 17.14% |
| A14 Bionic | 11.0 | 2020 | 31.43% |
| A15 Bionic | 15.8 | 2021 | 45.14% |
| A16 Bionic | 17.0 | 2022 | 48.57% |
| A17 Pro | 35.0 | 2023 | 100.00% |
Products that include the Apple A17 Pro
- iPhone 15 Pro & 15 Pro Max – 6-core CPU and 6-core GPU
- iPad Mini (7th generation) – 6-core CPU and 5-core GPU
Comparison of A15, A16 and A17
| Variant | CPU cores (P+E) |
GPU | Neural Engine | Memory | Process | Transistor count |
Used in | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cores | EUs | ALUs | Cores | Performance | ||||||
| A15 Bionic |
5 (2+3) | 5 | 80 | 640 | 16 | 15.8 TOPS | 4 GB LPDDR4X | TSMC N5P |
15 billion | Apple TV 4K (3rd generation) |
| 6 (2+4) | 4 | 64 | 512 | iPhone 13 | ||||||
| 5 | 80 | 640 | 4–6 GB LPDDR4X | iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 14, iPad mini 6 | ||||||
| A16 Bionic |
17 TOPS | 6 GB LPDDR5 | TSMC N4P |
16 billion | iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 15 | |||||
| A17 Pro |
6 | 96 | 768 | 35 TOPS | 8 GB LPDDR5 | TSMC N3 |
19 billion | iPhone 15 Pro | ||
| 5 | 80 | 640 | iPad Mini (A17 Pro) | |||||||
See also
- Apple silicon, range of ARM-based processors designed by Apple for their products
- Comparison of ARM processors#ARMv8-A