Apple now controls all major chips for iPhone, prioritizing AI loads

The iPhone Air is the great newcomer among AppleThe last composition, which was sold on Friday, but in the raised plateau of the thin phone is another new piece of hardware that signals an updated focus on artificial intelligence.

Apple’s personalized A19 Pro Chip introduces a major change in architecture, with neural accelerators being added to each GPU core to increase computing power. Apple also debuted its first wireless chip for iPhone, N1 and second -generation of its iPhone modem, C1X. It is that Move analysts say Apple Control over all the main chips in its phones.

“That’s where the magic is. When we have control, we are able to do things beyond what we can do by buying a commercial silicone part,” says Tim Milet, Apple Vice President on Architecture platform. He sat with CNBC at Apple Park in September for the first US interview with new chips.

So far, Broadcom He was the main supplier of wireless and Bluetooth chips for iPhone, although Apple has made network chips for AirPods and Apple Watch for nearly a decade. Apple’s N1 is all over the iPhone 17 and iPhone Air.

Arun Mathias, Apple Vice President of Wireless Software and Ecosystems, gave CNBC an example of the improved Wi-Fi functionality of N1.

“One of the things that people may not realize is that your Wi-Fi access points are actually contributing to the awareness of your location device, so you don’t have to use GPS, which actually costs more in terms of power,” Matias said. “As we can do this more without a background, without having to wake up the application processor so much, we can do this significantly more efficient.”

For iPhone modems, QUALCOMM is the only supplier of 2020. It changed in February when Apple revealed C1 in the iPhone 16eS This is a first plan on the movement in 2019, with Apple’s Purchase of the Modem Intel modem for $ 1 billion. Qualcomm has Long warned investors of the forthcoming change.

Qualcomm modems remain on the iPhone 17, 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, but Apple’s C1x is in the iPhone air.

“This may not be as good as Qualcomm, in terms of only overall bandwidth and performance, but they can control it and they can get it to work at a lower power. So you will get a better battery life,” said Ben Bajarin, CEO of Creative Strategies, technology and consultant. He expects Apple to “completely remove” Qualcomm in “The next few years”.

Apple Matthias said C1X is “up to twice as fast” than C1 and “uses 30% less energy” than the Qualcomm modem in the iPhone 16 Pro.

Neither Qualcomm nor Broadcom have seen much market impact after Apple’s message, and both companies will maintain license deals with Apple for certain basic technologies.

The three new apple chips come against the background of Increasing pressure from Wall Street For the company’s AI strategy.

“They probably never have their own Apple model as Google Or Openai, ”Bajarin said. “They still go Play these services on iPhoneRight? They want the iPhone to be the best place for developers to manage their AI. “

Apple has been do its own Chip or SOC system as A Series launched with the iPhone 4 in 2010. The latest generation A19 Pro has a new chip architecture that gives priority to AI load, adding neural accelerators to graphic nuclei.

“We build the best AI capability for AI that everyone else has,” Miletus told CNBC. “At the moment, we are focused on making sure that those phones we deliver today, or soon deliver, will be capable of all the important workloads of AI that come.”

Privacy is a major reason why Apple prioritizes AI’s priority to the device, but Millet said there is another reason.

“It’s effective for us. It’s responsive. We know we’re much more controlled on experience,” he said.

A “built -in AI”, an emphasized millet, is the new front camera that used AI To find a new face and automatically switches to a horizontal photo. “This is used a complete set of almost all options in the A19 Pro,” Mileta said.

Apple’s original AI hardware, its neural engine, was first discovered Back in 2017, he was hardly mentioned at the start. Instead, everything is related to the addition of computing power to the graphic processors.

“The integration of neural processing reaches the MacBook Pro Class class into the iPhone,” Millet said. “This is a big, big step forward in the ML Compute. So when you look inside the neural engine, for example, you have a very dense mathematics on the matrix. We didn’t have this ability in our graphic processor. But now we do with the A19 Pro.”

Bajarin told CNBC that Apple’s neural accelerators can work like tensor nuclei NvidiaAI chips like H100.

“We integrate nervous processing in a way that allows someone to write a program of one of these small processors, expanding the set of instructions so that there is a new class computer to which they have access to the right and they can switch back and forth between 3D-register instructions and neural processing instructions.

The previous generation of the Apple A19 SoC is in the base model iPhone 17, while the A19 Pro is on the iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max.

After Problems with overheating In the iPhone 15, a new “steam camera” in Pro models keeps the custom chips cool.

“It is actually positioned in accordance with the place where the chip system, A19 Pro, is positioned,” said Caian Drans, Apple Vice President for the iPhone’s World Product Marketing. “We think all this goes together, including this forged aluminum design of a brain, which is an incredibly thermally conductive so that we can effectively dispel the heat with the steam camera, where it is located with our chip. And it is even a laser welded in it, which creates a metal connection that also helps to dissipate the warmth.”

Apple still relies on others for smaller components, such as Samsung for memory and Texas Tools For analog chips. However, all major chips can be designed on Apple on any iPhone next year, according to Bajarin.

“We expect that there will be modems coming to Mac. We expect the modems to come on an iPad. There are probably N variants of the network chip coming to Mac,” Bajarin said. “I think in the next few years he will be on the whole portfolio.”

When CNBC asked Apple’s millet if neural accelerators would be in the M5 graphic nuclei, the next expected SOC for MAC, he said, “We have a unified approach to architecture.”

The iPhone manufacturer plans to produce at least some of its personalized chips in the US, in facilities such as Taiwanese company for semiconductor productionThe new Arizona campus where CNBC I have a tour from the first FAB completed.

Apple’s A19 Pro is made on the leading edge of TSMC’s 3-nanometer node. While TSMC works to 3nm production in Arizona until 2028It’s not there yet.

“If you have to be the leading advantage, it will be Taiwan so far,” Bajarin said.

In August Trump announced a 100% Chip Tariff from companies that do not do internally. That The same dayApple has increased its commitment to US costs $ 600 billion Over the next four years. CEO Tim Cook said part of this will be aimed at creating a “silicon supply chain from end to end right here in America.”

“There is really a question how many tariffs affect the silicon supply chain,” Bajarin said. “This is obviously the reason Apple and Tim Cook are on their mission and talking about investing in America.”

As part of this plan, Bajain said Apple could give us a fight against us Intel “Serious attention if 14A really fulfills all its promises.” Although, he added, this will be some time “before Intel” becomes a viable option.

Apple is now committed to making chips in TSMC Arizona.

“We are super excited about the TSMC boost in US production. It will obviously help us from the time zone, and we also appreciate that the variety of deliveries is also really important,” Milet said.

Asked if he knew how many of the $ 600 billion on Apple would go for Silicon to order, Millet replied: “I hope it’s a lot.”

Watch the video To see a backstage view of Apple’s latest personalized silicon.

Correction: This article has been updated to show that the A19 Pro is in the iPhone 17 Pro.

– How to go to bed contributed to this report.