The dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn claiming that the Fruity Cargo Cult Apple plans to give its standard A20 processor fewer GPU cores, less cache and older packaging technology.
Jobs’ Mob is sending a warning message to fanboys that apparently, buying a standard iPhone comes with a thunderbolt from the Apple gods that you should have spent more money.
According to IT Home, citing the original Weibo leak., the A20 will use TSMC’s 2nm N2 manufacturing process but retain conventional Package-on-Package (PoP) technology. JApple is reserving the newer Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module (WMCM) packaging for its more expensive A20 Pro.
WMCM positions the DRAM beside the processor, improving heat dissipation during sustained workloads. The standard A20 will reportedly retain the older arrangement, with memory stacked above the chip, which could increase thermal pressure and limit sustained performance. On the plus side, keeping the poor peasants warm during cold winters is now part of the design philosophy.
The standard A20 is expected to occupy between 70mm² and 80mm², compared with 82.8mm² for the A19. Smaller dies help reduce manufacturing costs, particularly as TSMC’s latest 2nm process is unlikely to be giving Job’s Mob generous discounts.
The GPU is expected to contain five cores, compared with the six or seven cores anticipated for the Pro variant. The leaker suggests Apple could further restrict performance through lower operating frequencies, ensuring the cheaper model knows its place.
CPU configuration reportedly remains unchanged, with two performance cores and four efficiency cores. However, the performance cores are expected to share just 8MB of L2 cache, while the efficiency cores receive 4MB. Both figures represent half the capacity reportedly allocated to the A20 Pro.
There is some good news for customers who haven’t sold a kidney to afford a Pro model. System-level cache could increase from the A19’s 12MB to 16MB, providing additional capacity despite the cuts elsewhere.
The A20 is expected to retain the dual 16-core Neural Engine configuration, providing 32 cores and 4MB of dedicated cache. This should preserve much of the chip’s AI processing capability, ensuring Apple Intelligence has plenty of silicon available whenever it gets around to being intelligent.
Memory connectivity could include the same 96-bit bus anticipated for the A20 Pro, using LPDDR5X RAM. That should increase bandwidth compared with earlier designs, although the standard processor is still expected to deliver less bandwidth than its more expensive sibling.
The specifications suggest Job’s Mob intends to widen the performance gap between its standard and Pro processors while controlling the cost of manufacturing its latest silicon. The approach would preserve more expensive features for customers willing to pay the Apple tax.
Actual clock speeds, thermal behaviour and performance will require independent testing before anyone can establish how much the cheaper chip has lost.
