Apple A20 Pro powers iPhone Duo, 18 Pro — the company’s first 2-nanometer smartphone chip
Apple has a new top system-on-a-chip for smartphones, the A20 Pro. The new processor, alongside a new in-house modem, the C2, was debuted at Apple’s iPhone event today, the first led by newly minted chief executive officer John Ternus.
The A20 Pro is Apple’s first 2-nanometer chip in an iPhone. (Its first-ever 2 nm chip is the M6, which the company announced in August and will debut in the Mac Mini later this month). Like M6, the A20 features dual neural engines, new CPU and GPU cores.
The A20 Pro will power the new foldable iPhone Duo, along with the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max.
The new SOC boasts a 6-core CPU with two of the company’s super-cores (20% faster than last generation), while there are also four efficiency cores with neural accelerators. Apple is calling this a “desktop-class” processor and the “fastest CPU in a smartphone.”
The 7-core GPU has a 40% boost gen-over-gen with increased bandwidth, along with new neural accelerators that the company says allows for twice as faster FP8 compute.
The two neural engines have a combined 32 total cores. There’s a 50% increase in memory bandwidth on the chip, which Apple says is the widest memory interface in an iPhone.
Apple has also changed the packaging, with the silicon dies placed in a way that removes memory from the thermal path of the SOC, allowing the silicon to attach directly to the vapor chamber. That vapor chamber has a three times larger surface area over the 17 Pro, and also includes more graphite and copper along with 80% recycled stainless steel.
The company claims that this will allow for up to 40% sustained performance over the iPhone 17 Pro and 2x sustained performance over the 16 Pro.
Apple says that A20 Pro’s efficiencies and new battery designs allow for more longevity. The company claims the Pro will get 36 hours of video playback, and 45 hours on Pro Max video. Using a proprietary test based on data from how people use their phones, Apple claims 24 hours per charge on the 18 Pro and 30 hours on Pro Max.
Beyond the SOC, Apple is also using a new C2 cellular modem, replacing Qualcomm. Apple claims that C2 “delivers meaningfully faster uploads when compared to C1X while consuming 15 percent less energy,” and also adds mmWave support in the United States. Both phones also feature the N1 networking chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread.
The iPhone 18 Pro will start at $1,199, while the Pro Max will start at $1,299. The phones will be available on September 18. The phones also feature an updated Dynamic Island and a 48-megapixel fusion camera with a variable aperture, plus customizable settings like white balance and cinematic effects that can be added after capture.
Apple’s other new silicon was the S11, a chip for the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4.
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