Apple plots big battery boost for iPhone 14

Is that a 5G?

Apple’s devices will deliver impressive improvements in battery life in the coming years. In 2023, the company is thought to be planning its slightly delayed move to 3nm A-series chips, while in iPhone 14 a smaller 5G chip should also deliver a big battery boost.

What’s in a chip?

Asking what’s in a chip is an open-ended question, because the design of each chip varies. You get a bunch of transistors integrated onto the material. This material gets thinner and thinner (or, at least, Apple’s semiconductors do), and the thinner it gets the less power it requires and more efficiently it performs (faster).

What we think we know about the pending 5G chip in iPhone 14 suggests we’ll see that radio set on a 6-nanometer process, which means it should be more power efficient and smaller than the 5G found inside iPhone 13.

Update: There is some confusion, as a second set of reports claim these new modems won’t appear until next year, and will be manufactured using a different process, so what follows may be a little inaccurate — I’m sure the speculation will coalesce around a specific set of thought in the coming weeks. The second series of claims speculates 5nm and later 4nm process for the 5G chips.

What we can know for certain, I guess, is that Apple wants to put smaller, lower energy 5G radios into iPhones, which will benefit battery life.

Why it matters

The move to smaller process tech is expected to be matched in A-series chips (the iPhone’s brains, if you like) next year. These are currently created in 5-nanometer thickness. Apple had been expected to shift to 3nm this year, but we heard last year the company’s manufacturing partner, TSMC, hit some hurdles. That means the next A-series chips will be an iteration on the existing 5nm processor, which also means Apple wants to deliver battery and performance improvements to make sure the next edition shines.

Game of phones

In the background, we know the company is working to create its own 5G chips, as it has never been entirely comfortable with licensing their designs from Qualcomm. That time now seems to have come, because the new 5G chips will be made instead by TSMC.

These new 5G chips will leverage work Apple has been doing on mmWave and integrate a superior power management chip, a report claims.

We’d previously heard that Apple planned to get TSMC to begin churning out 5G chips in 2023, so it’s possible there’s been a design breakthrough. I just don’t know if that’s so. It’s also possible the design may still be licensed from Qualcomm – but there are signs that both sides are preparing for a little future tension. Perhaps they should hug it out?

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.