Apple A16 Bionic Gets New Cores Codenamed Mountains

For the first time, the new iPhone 14 models did not receive the latest SoC and it was reserved for the Pro models instead. And it doesn’t really matter anyway, because last year’s A15 is still reasonably fast, and as we’ve seen from recent Geekbench leaks, the performance difference isn’t all that great compared to this year’s A16 Bionic.

The A16 Bionic SoC is likely built on TSMC’s N4P node, which is often referred to as a 4nm node, but it’s more of an improvement on the 5nm family. N4P is claimed to provide an 11% performance improvement over the latest N5 node and a 22% energy efficiency improvement. This can also be seen from recent Geekbench scores, where the A16 Bionic scored 1887 in single-core and 5455 in multi-core. This is a 5-7% increase compared to the A15 Bionic in single-core and 10-12% increase in multi-core.

Some of these improvements may also be related to the new cores used in the A16 Bionic. Twitter user Longhorn was able to find the names of the new kernels from xCode. The new chipset is called Crete , the new efficiency cores are codenamed Sawtooth , and the performance cores are Everest . This time around, Apple is also sticking to its traditional 6-core chip, with two high-performance cores and four efficient cores.

What’s more, it looks like Apple has finally run out of code names for natural phenomena, among which we’ve seen names like “Lightning”, “Thunder”, “Avalanche” and “Ice Storm”. The new codename theme is clearly based on mountain ranges . Apple will likely continue with the new naming scheme for future chipsets until they run out of mountain ranges.

The real improvements in the A16 Bionic are supposed to lie in power efficiency , but this can only be confirmed after initial reviews come out. There’s no doubt that the iPhone 14 Pro models will have better battery life, but it won’t all come from the SoC itself, as the new phones now have an improved LTPO display that saves power, as well as a bigger battery on the iPhone. 14 pro.