Apple used its iPhone 18 Pro keynote to detail the A20 Pro, the chip powering the new iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max. Apple’s pitch is that the on-device AI workloads introduced with Apple Intelligence and Siri AI needed a proportionate jump in silicon and cooling, and the A20 Pro is built around that requirement.
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What’s new in the A20 Pro
The A20 Pro moves to a 2nm manufacturing process, which Apple says allows for smaller, more densely packed transistors across the chip. Key specs include:
- CPU: A new 6-core design with 2 “Supercore” performance cores (up to 20 percent faster than before, which Apple describes as desktop-class) and 4 efficiency cores, with neural accelerators built in for low-latency on-device AI tasks.
- GPU: A 7-core GPU delivering up to a 40 percent performance increase over the previous generation, with added microarchitectural improvements aimed at high-end gaming, plus new neural accelerators for on-device AI work like running third-party LLMs locally.
- Neural Engine: Apple added a second Neural Engine, bringing the total to 32 cores and roughly doubling neural compute power compared to the outgoing chip.
- Memory bandwidth: Increased by 50 percent, which Apple calls the widest memory interface it has shipped in an iPhone.
New chip packaging and cooling
Apple also redesigned how the A20 Pro is physically packaged, placing the silicon die side-by-side with memory in a layout inspired by its M-series Mac chips. This keeps memory out of the SoC’s thermal path and lets the chip connect directly to a new vapour chamber for cooling.
That vapour chamber has three times the surface area of the one in the iPhone 17 Pro, uses circulating deionised water, and is built with 80 per cent recycled stainless steel along with a new nano-twin copper material Apple says is an industry first. The company claims this adds up to a 40 percent gain in sustained performance over the iPhone 17 Pro, and up to 2x over the iPhone 16 Pro and earlier models.
Battery life
Apple says the combination of A20 Pro’s efficiency and a new battery design allows the iPhone 18 Pro to match the iPhone 17 Pro Max’s all-day battery life despite a smaller form factor, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max gets what Apple calls its largest battery life jump ever.
On video playback (eSIM-only models), Apple rates the iPhone 18 Pro at up to 36 hours and the iPhone 18 Pro Max at up to 45 hours. Under a newer real-world usage-based model, the company rates general usage at up to 24 hours per charge for the iPhone 18 Pro and up to 30 hours for the Pro Max. Wired charging is also faster, with a 50 percent charge in around 15 minutes, and just 5 minutes of charging is said to provide about 6 hours of video playback.
