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apple launched its first second-generation 3nm chip series, the a18 and a18 pro, for the iphone 16 series last month, bringing a series of improvements over last year's a17 pro. despite using the same 6-core cpu and only one gpu core difference between the two, the latest chip screenshot comparison shows that this results in a complete reconfiguration of the chip cluster.

chipwise has conducted an in-depth analysis of the a18 and a18 pro. on paper, the differences between the two socs are almost negligible, but a look under the microscope will tell us a lot more about the two chipsets. one of the biggest advantages of having these two chipsets in the iphone 16 series is that they are mass-produced using tsmc's integrated fan-out package-on-package (info-pop for short).

this packaging method stacks dram directly on the chip die and adds high-density redistribution layers and through info via technology. in short, this helps reduce the size of the a18 and a18 pro while improving thermal and electrical performance. most importantly, this technology brings great flexibility to apple's products because dram packages can be interchanged or replaced.

from the comparison of the scanned images of the chip, we tried to clearly see the extra gpu cores on the a18 pro. if our guess is correct, it's on top of the chip, but slightly to the left. it might help if chipwise annotated the cpu and gpu clusters as well as the neural engine, but it seems we'll have to wait for closer inspection to discover more.