A new report from someone who claims to have inside information about the iPhone 16 purports that the A17 chip used in that model will have a much different "cost-reducing" process that could see a dip in performance, but there's no reason to panic just yet.
The new rumor about next year's 2024 iPhone 16 comes from someone on Weibo whose username roughly translates as "mobile phone chip master." That source recently claimed, "The A15 used in the iPhone15 pro and iPhone15 pro max stocked this year is an N3B process, but the A17 produced at some point in time next year will be switched to the cost-reducing N3E process, and the performance may be worse."
The report, spotted by MacRumors, seems to suggest that the A17 chip expected to feature in the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max will not be the same A17 chip that trickles down to the iPhone 16 next year, with a major cost-cutting measure bringing a different process to the chip that could see it become less efficient.
iPhone 16 chip drama
"N3B is TSMC's original 3nm node created in partnership with Apple. N3E, on the other hand, is the simpler, more accessible node that most other TSMC clients will use. N3E has fewer EUV layers and lower transistor density than N3B, resulting in efficiency tradeoffs, but the process can provide better performance. N3B has also been ready for mass production for some time longer than N3E, but it has much lower yield," MacRumors notes.
While this would be a bit of a blow to the prospects of the iPhone 16, there isn't any reason to worry just yet. For starters, the 3nm A17 chip will be so much more advanced than the iPhone 14 Pro's A16 chip that it will still be lightyears ahead of the iPhone 15's chip, even in its dumbed-down form.
More importantly, however, this information comes from a random Weibo account that claims to have worked on Intel's Pentium processors for 25 years. We don't know who the account belongs to, and there's no reason to suggest it has inside information worth considering, as per nearly every other leak and rumor on the internet, it's likely not true.
We know a lot more about the iPhone 15 expected in September, which will feature the A16 from the current best iPhone, the iPhone 14 Pro. Other upgrades include the Dynamic Island and a 48MP camera across the range, making this year's "regular" iPhone a fairly substantial upgrade.
