The Apple A11 Bionic is a 64-bit ARM-based

system on a chip A system on a chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines most or all key components of a computer or Electronics, electronic system onto a single microchip. Typically, an SoC includes a central processing unit (CPU) with computer memory, ...

(SoC) designed by Apple Inc., part of the

Apple silicon Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture family, ARM architecture. They are used in nearly all of the company's devices including Mac ...

series, and manufactured by

TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC or Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is one of the world's most valuable semiconductor companies, the world' ...

. It was only used in the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, and

iPhone X The iPhone X (Roman numerals, Roman numeral "X" pronounced "ten") is a smartphone that was developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is part of the List of iPhone models, 11th generation of the iPhone. Available for pre-order from September 26, 2 ...

which were introduced on September 12, 2017. Apple states that the two high-performance cores are 25% faster than the Apple A10's and the four high-efficiency cores are up to 70% faster than the two corresponding cores in the A10. The A11 Bionic chip was discontinued on April 15, 2020, following the discontinuation of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. The latest software update for the iPhone 8 & 8 Plus and

using this chip was iOS 16.7.10, released on September 3, 2024.

Design

The A11 features an Apple-designed 64-bit ARMv8-A six-core CPU, with two high-performance cores at 2.39 GHz, called Monsoon, and four energy-efficient cores, called Mistral. The Monsoon cores are a 7-wide decode out-of-order

superscalar A superscalar processor (or multiple-issue processor) is a CPU that implements a form of parallelism called instruction-level parallelism within a single processor. In contrast to a scalar processor, which can execute at most one single in ...

design, while the Mistral cores are a 3-wide decode out-of-order

design. The Mistral cores are based on Apple's Swift cores from the Apple A6. The A11 uses a new second-generation performance controller, which permits the A11 to use all six cores simultaneously, unlike its predecessor the A10. The A11 also integrates an Apple-designed three-core

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

(GPU) with 30% faster graphics performance than the A10. Embedded in the A11 is the M11 motion coprocessor. The A11 includes a new image processor which supports

computational photography Computational photography refers to digital image capture and processing techniques that use digital computation instead of optical processes. Computational photography can improve the capabilities of a camera, or introduce features that were no ...

functions such as lighting estimation, wide color capture, and advanced pixel processing. The A11 is manufactured by

using a 10 nm FinFET process and contains 4.3 billion transistors on a die 87.66 mm² in size, 30% smaller than the A10. It is manufactured in a

package on package Package on a package (PoP) is an integrated circuit packaging method to vertically combine ball grid array (BGA) packages for discrete logic and Semiconductor memory, memory. Two or more packages are installed atop each other, i.e. stacked, with a ...

(PoP) together with 2 GB of LPDDR4X memory in the

iPhone 8 The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are smartphones developed and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the eleventh generation of the iPhone. The iPhone 8 was released on September 22, 2017, succeeding the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, respectively. T ...

and 3 GB of LPDDR4X memory in the iPhone 8 Plus and

. The A11 has video codec encoding support for

HEVC High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In co ...

and H.264. It has decoding support for HEVC, H.264, MPEG‑4 Part 2, and Motion JPEG.

Neural Engine

The A11 also includes dedicated neural network hardware that Apple calls a "Neural Engine". This

neural network A neural network is a group of interconnected units called neurons that send signals to one another. Neurons can be either biological cells or signal pathways. While individual neurons are simple, many of them together in a network can perfor ...

hardware can perform up to 600 billion operations per second and is used for Face ID, Animoji and other

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

tasks. The neural engine allows Apple to implement neural network and machine learning in a more energy-efficient manner than using either the main CPU or the GPU. However, third-party apps cannot use the Neural Engine, leading to similar neural network performance to older iPhones.

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician a ...

says that the neural engine is the fruit of Apple's efforts to improve its AI team, since the 2015 report by Bloomberg that Apple's secretive nature made it difficult to attract AI research scientists. Apple has since recruited people and multiple companies working on AI, and has published papers related to AI research. In October 2016, Apple hired Russ Salakhutdinov as its director of AI research.

Products that include the Apple A11 Bionic

The Apple A11 Bionic chip is used in the following

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

models and not on any generation of

iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

iPod touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a po ...

, or

Apple TV Apple TV is a digital media player and a microconsole developed and marketed by Apple. It is a small piece of networking hardware that sends received media data such as video and audio to a TV or external display. Its media services include ...

. * iPhone 8 & 8 Plus *

Gallery

References

{{Application ARM-based chips Computer-related introductions in 2017 Apple silicon

Design

Neural Engine

Products that include the Apple A11 Bionic

Gallery

See also

References