Apple’s next-generation A20 Pro chip is expected to introduce two of the biggest advancements to an iPhone processor in years, with reports pointing to a new manufacturing process and advanced packaging technology that could significantly improve performance and power efficiency.
The A20 Pro is expected to power the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max later this year, succeeding the A19 Pro while laying the foundation for more advanced Apple Intelligence features.
One of the biggest reported changes is Apple’s move to TSMC’s 2-nanometre manufacturing process. The A20 Pro is expected to become the first iPhone chip built using the new process, allowing Apple to pack more transistors into the same space while improving both performance and energy efficiency.
Shrinking the manufacturing process has historically delivered some of the biggest year-over-year improvements in Apple’s custom silicon. A smaller process allows chips to perform more work while consuming less power, helping deliver faster performance, improved battery life, and greater thermal efficiency.
Alongside the transition to 2nm, the A20 Pro is also rumoured to introduce a new packaging technology known as Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module (WMCM).
Unlike traditional chip packaging, WMCM allows key components, including the system-on-a-chip and memory, to be integrated much closer together during manufacturing. The shorter distance between components can improve communication speeds while reducing power consumption and improving heat dissipation.
The combination of the new 2nm process and WMCM packaging is expected to make the A20 Pro particularly well suited to artificial intelligence workloads. Faster communication between the processor and memory could improve the performance of Apple Intelligence features, while also benefiting graphics-intensive tasks such as gaming, video editing, and computational photography.