The running score has not improved, but the A12 chip reveals the big game that Apple is playing

According to Leifeng.com, the new iPhone is highly anticipated, but as in recent years, there have been a lot of leaks before the launch. Moreover, the leaks were confirmed at the launch, that is, three iPhones will be released at the same time, including the iPhone XS/XS Max with OLED screens and the iPhone XR with LCD screens. However, the iPhone's support for dual SIM dual standby, a feature that domestic mobile phones have long had, has become the focus of many consumers after the launch, and the price of over 10,000 yuan is also the focus of discussion. However, looking back at the introduction of the iPhone at the 2018 Apple launch, we seem to be able to find that Apple is laying out a "chess game".

The "chess game" that Apple is laying out stems from the latest A12 Bionic processor. Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of global marketing, said that the A12 Bionic is the smartest and most powerful chip for the iPhone to date, and it is also the first 7nm processor in the global computer industry, integrating 6.9 billion transistors. Does this statement sound familiar? At the end of last month, Huawei stated at IFA that the Kirin 980 is the world's first commercial mobile phone SoC chip using TSMC's 7nm process, integrating 6.9 billion transistors, achieving a comprehensive improvement in performance and energy efficiency. Both are TSMC's 7nm process, integrating 6.9 billion transistors, but if we look at the time when mobile phones equipped with 7nm processors are launched, the A12 Bionic can indeed be called the world's first 7nm processor. In addition, other chip giants such as Intel are still worried about 10nm, and AMD and Nvidia have not yet released products using TSMC's 7nm process.

So, what is the A12 Bionic like? The CPU and GPU of the A12 Bionci are both independently designed. The CPU is 6 cores (2 large cores + 4 small cores). The two performance cores are responsible for high-intensity computing tasks, and the four energy-efficient cores handle daily tasks. At the same time, the latest performance controller can dynamically allocate work to different cores. When high-speed operation is required, the performance of all six cores can be exerted at the same time. Compared with the A11 Bionic, the speed of the two large cores is increased by up to 15%, and the energy saving of the four small cores is up to 50%.

GPU是4核，新的第4核心和无损内存压缩技术能为游戏、视频编辑以及需要大量视觉特效的APP图形性能带来显著提升。对比看，相比3核心的A11 Bionic GPU速度提升最高为50%，并针对 Metal 2进行进一步的优化。

However, the new generation of Apple's self-designed Neural Engine is more critical. The Neural Engine architecture has increased from the dual-core of the A11 Bionic to the eight-core of the A12 Bionic, which has brought amazing performance improvements. The A11 Bionic can complete 600 billion operations per second, while the A12 Bionic can complete 5 trillion operations per second, and the Core ML running speed can be increased by up to 9 times.

In addition, the image signal processor is equipped with an optimized depth sensing engine to capture rich details in portrait mode. Coupled with Smart HDR, Apple says users will find that the dynamic range of photos has been greatly improved than before.

Of course, Apple also uses the smart learning system on the neural network engine to intelligently decide whether to use the CPU, GPU or neural network to run the program, which will greatly improve the performance overall. Specifically, the main frequency of A11 Bionic is 2.39GHz, the main frequency of A12 Bionic is increased to 2.49GHz, and RAM is also increased from 3GB to 4GB. Judging from the Geekbench running points, the single-core running points increased from 4307 points of A11 Bionic to 4814 points of A12 Bionic, but the dual-core running points decreased from 10800 points to 10266 points. Leifeng.com will have a separate article on the more detailed performance analysis and comparison of A12 Bionic and Kirin 980 in the future, but it should be clear that a high running point does not mean a better experience.

The table comes from geekbench

Through the detailed introduction of Leifeng.com, we can clearly see the performance improvement of A12 Bionic from the data, but all of this is to improve the final user experience. Ka Yan, Apple's senior product manager, said: "A12 Bionic is designed specifically for iPhone and can meet the performance and power consumption requirements of iPhone. Therefore, based on A12 Bionic, whether it is Face ID, games, photography, or multitasking, there is more than 30% improvement."

An important function that has benefited from the performance improvement is photography. Through the further evolution of the dual-lens system of iPhoneXS and XS Max, depth of field control, enhanced out-of-focus imaging, Smart HDR, etc. Let's talk about Smart HDR first. When the shutter is pressed, the camera will automatically take 4 photos, and use the Neural Engine of A12 Bionci combined with the calculation of GPU to select the best one. Apple will call it Zero shutter lag technology.

But the process is not as simple as described. When the shutter is pressed, the camera not only leaves 4 frames of images, but also takes copies of them at another exposure level to retain highlight details, and another high exposure frame to retain dark details. Finally, the Neural Engine will select the highest quality photos again, including positive films, highlights, and shadows, and combine them to achieve the Smart HDR effect. The whole process requires the cooperation of the mobile phone camera processor, Neural Engine, CPU, and GPU.

As for the better bokeh effect, when the previous generation iPhone X was first released, many users found that the portrait mode effect was not good. The reason was that the bokeh was not achieved by dual cameras, but by a single camera + computer simulation. Philip Schiller said that Apple camera engineers used the bokeh effects captured by the top cameras and lenses on the market to train the iPhone camera, software and A12 Neural Engine, and believed that better bokeh effects could be achieved (this time it was still computer simulation).

There is also Memoji, which many people are looking forward to. Apple said that they are serious about turning users into living emojis. Memoji expressions use A12 Bionic, and the original depth camera scans more than 50 facial muscle movements, even the tongue. Experts who create portrait lighting effects also give Memoji more realistic professional lighting effects based on different skin colors and head shapes.

At this point, you may think that the A12 Bionic is so powerful that it is obviously overkill to only use it to improve photography, so three next-generation apps were also shown at the press conference. The first app is the world's first-person role-playing game "The Elder Scrolls Blades", which makes full use of the rendering capabilities of the CPU and GPU to make the game more immersive. The second app is a camera-based application that achieves better basketball teaching by tracking shooting movements. The third is an augmented reality 3D shooting game, in which three players each operate their mobile phones, shoot at targets in the same space, and finally compare scores.

The game leverages Apple's ARKit 2 augmented reality platform, combined with image recognition and spatial perception capabilities driven by the Neural Engine.

Among the three demonstrations called the next generation of APP, the first one is AR, in addition to immersion. Leifeng.com believes that this is the initial stage of Apple's AR layout. Obviously, in the early stage of AR ecosystem establishment, the hardware and content are not mature enough, so it cannot give us a big impact and revolutionary changes in experience.

Even if the 3D shooting game amazed the audience at the press conference, it is believed that it will not be able to attract all users. Therefore, starting from WWDC 2018, we can see that Apple hopes that more developers will develop AR-related applications. After the release of a more powerful processor at the autumn new product launch conference, Kayan said that real-time machine learning can be performed under the powerful engine of A12 Bionic, and it can be open to the Core ML platform, which can be increased to 9 times compared with the previous generation, but only consumes one-tenth of the power.

At this point, let's look back at Apple's original intention of launching Neural Engine, which is designed for advanced, real-time machine learning. By opening Neural Engine to the Core ML platform, developers can apply powerful, real-time machine learning to their own apps, allowing learning to be done right on the iPhone. Wouldn't this directly promote the construction of an ecosystem for AR and more AI applications based on A12 Bionic?

It should also be clear that the investment in processor research and development is calculated in billions. Since Apple is willing to invest resources to build the powerful A12 Bionic, it shows that Apple is very optimistic about the application prospects based on more powerful processors, especially the Neural Engine. Therefore, compared with the brief introduction of A11 Bionic in less than three minutes at last year's press conference, A12 Bionic took up most of the time at this year's press conference. Obviously, this is not only a driving force for the iPhone to increase its appeal to consumers, but also can be seen as the beginning of a new era. Once the AR applications and ecology based on Apple's customized powerful processor mature, it is believed that huge energy will burst out, and we may find a different iPhone. At the same time, many other AI functions will also be able to be realized on the iPhone. From this point of view, is Apple leading a new era again?

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