 | |
| General information | |
|---|---|
| Launched | September 12, 2017; 7 years ago (2017-09-12) |
| Discontinued | April 15, 2020; 4 years ago (2020-04-15) |
| Designed by | Apple Inc. |
| Common manufacturer | |
| Product code | APL1W72[2] |
| Max.CPUclock rate | to 2.38[3] GHz |
| Cache | |
| L1cache | 64 KB instruction, 64 KB data[4] |
| L2 cache | 8 MB |
| Architecture and classification | |
| Application | Mobile |
| Technology node | 10 nm (10FF)[1] |
| Microarchitecture | "Monsoon" and "Mistral" |
| Instruction set | A64 –ARMv8.2-A |
| Physical specifications | |
| Transistors |
|
| Cores |
|
| GPU | Apple-designed 3 core[6] |
| History | |
| Predecessors | Apple A10 Fusion (iPhone) Apple A10X Fusion (iPad) |
| Successor | Apple A12 Bionic |
TheApple A11 Bionic is a64-bitARM-basedsystem on a chip (SoC) designed byApple Inc., part of theApple silicon series,[6] and manufactured byTSMC.[1] It first appeared in theiPhone 8 and 8 Plus, andiPhone X which were introduced on September 12, 2017.[6] Apple states that the two high-performancecores are 25% faster than theApple A10's and the four high-efficiency cores are up to 70% faster than the two corresponding cores in the A10.[6][7] The A11 Bionic chip was discontinued on April 15, 2020, following the discontinuation of theiPhone 8 and 8 Plus. The latest software update for theiPhone 8 & 8 Plus andiPhone X using this chip wasiOS 16.7.10, released on September 3, 2024.[8]
The A11 features an Apple-designed 64-bit ARMv8-A six-core CPU, with two high-performance cores at 2.39 GHz, calledMonsoon, and four energy-efficient cores, calledMistral.[1][6][5] The Monsoon cores are a 7-wide decodeout-of-ordersuperscalar design, while the Mistral cores are a 3-wide decodeout-of-ordersuperscalar design. The Mistral cores are based on Apple's Swift cores from theApple A6.[9][failed verification] The A11 uses a new second-generation performance controller, which permits the A11 to use all six cores simultaneously,[10] unlike its predecessor theA10.
The A11 also integrates an Apple-designed three-coregraphics processing unit (GPU) with 30% faster graphics performance than the A10.[6] Embedded in the A11 is the M11motion coprocessor.[11] The A11 includes a newimage processor which supportscomputational photography functions such as lighting estimation, wide color capture, and advanced pixel processing.[6]
The A11 is manufactured byTSMC using a10 nmFinFET process[1] and contains 4.3 billion transistors[7] on a die 87.66 mm2 in size, 30% smaller than the A10.[12] It is manufactured in apackage on package (PoP) together with 2GB ofLPDDR4X memory in theiPhone 8[2] and 3 GB of LPDDR4X memory in theiPhone 8 Plus[12] andiPhone X.[13][14]
The A11 has video codec encoding support forHEVC andH.264. It has decoding support for HEVC, H.264,MPEG‑4 Part 2, andMotion JPEG.[15]
| SoC | A11 (10 nm) |
|---|---|
| Total Die | 87.66 |
| Big Core | 2.68 |
| Small Core | 0.53 |
| CPU Complex (incl. cores) | 14.48 |
| GPU Core | 4.43 |
| GPU Total | 15.28 |
| NPU | 1.83 |
The A11 also includesdedicated neural network hardware that Apple calls a "Neural Engine". Thisneural network hardware can perform up to 600 billion operations per second and is used forFace ID,Animoji and othermachine learning tasks.[10] 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.[16][17] However, third-party apps cannot use the Neural Engine, leading to similar neural network performance to older iPhones.[9]
Bloomberg 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.[17] Apple has since recruited people and multiple companies working on AI, and has published papers related to AI research.[17] In October 2016, Apple hiredRuss Salakhutdinov as its director of AI research.[18]
The Apple A11 Bionic chip is used in the followingiPhone models and not on any generation ofiPad,iPod touch, orApple TV.
| Preceded by | Apple A11 Bionic 2017 | Succeeded by |
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