Apple's products every year are attracting much attention, according to the past practice, every year will hold two conferences, the first half of the spring conference will bring ecological products, occasionally launch a cheaper iPhone SE series, the second half of the year will bring a heavy iPhone flagship series products, iPad series, Mac series and so on will also be updated. Judging from the recent supply chain and news released by the media, Apple will most likely bring two products equipped with A15 chips in the first half of this year, namely the new iPhone SE and iPad Air 5, and the new A16 chip design has been completed, which will be used in the second half of the iPhone 14 and iPad, and these two chips will also run through Apple's mobile phones and tablet products in 2022.
According to the news provided by the supply chain, Apple's self-developed A16 processor will use TSMC's 4nm N4P process, which is a new process launched by TSMC at the end of last year, and its performance is 11% faster than the original N5 and 6% faster than the N4, which also seems to mean that Apple's A16 chip should not be very much improved compared to A15, and it is rumored that the overall performance will increase by about 16%. It is expected to start mass production at TSMC's Fab 18 plant in the second half of the year and take down TSMC's 120,000-150,000 pieces of 4nm production capacity.
Last year, the media exposed that the average price increase of the accumulated power chip in 2022 reached 8%-10%, and the price increase of the new 4nm N4P process chip was inevitable, it is reported that Apple has accepted the price increase to ensure production capacity, but because it is the largest customer, the increase will be lower than other advanced process customers, which also means that the price of the iPhone 14 may rise. Not long ago, foreign blogger LeaksApplePro released a price data for the iPhone 14, showing that the price of the iPhone 14 series was raised by $100 compared with the iPhone 13.
The characteristics of the iPhone 14 series are actually that the overseas media have already released a lot of news. The Pro version will cancel the bangs screen, switch to the "pill" double-digging design, equipped with a 48 million pixel camera, flash memory will switch to QLC, running memory may rise to 8GB, the maximum capacity may be increased to 2TB, the entire series will only have 6.1 inches and 6.7 inches of two versions, and the A16 chip may control the pricing of the iPhone 14 series with the strategy of residual blood version and full blood version.
As for the iPhone SE3 and iPad Air equipped with the A15 chip, there is also relevant news. Among them, the shape of the iPhone SE3 is not much changed, it is still 4.7 inches + Touch ID fingerprint, with 3GB RAM, 64GB capacity to start, will upgrade the sensor, add night mode and other functions, the price will be controlled below 400 US dollars, the National Bank is expected to be lowered to less than 3000 yuan.
Overseas Mac Otakara reported that the overall design of the iPad Air 5 is the same as the current iPad Air 4, equipped with a 10.9-inch display, Touch ID power button, rear single camera, and a colorful color matching option. As for the core configuration, it is similar to the iPad mini 6, equipped with a new A15 bionic chip, the cellular version supports 5G, and the front 12MP wide-angle lens.
In recent years, Apple has been moving towards the road of self-developed chips, the mass production of M1 series chips has already explained this, it is rumored that in next year's iPhone 15 series, Apple will use the solution of self-developed chips for the first time, 5G chips will use TSMC's 5nm process, RF IC will use TSMC's 7nm process, and the most important A17 application processor will use TSMC electrodes for advanced 3nm process for mass production, and it is expected to begin testing in the second half of 2022. Mass production will be put into 2023, which also avoids the problem of the chip being "stuck neck".