Apple is slated to launch the iPhone 18 Pro later this year alongside the first foldable iPhone. While the foldable will be the highlight of Apple’s event, the iPhone 18 Pro would come with advanced upgrades in almost all respects. A leaked image of the iPhone 18 Pro motherboard has surfaced online, showing the A20 Pro chip with a new packaging technology that could offer significant performance gains over the current chips.
Leaked iPhone 18 Pro Motherboard Allegedly Reveals A20 Pro Chip With TSMC’s Advanced WMCM Packaging
The leaked image was shared by “WHYLAB” and “Ice Universe” on Weibo, showcasing the A20 Pro chip integrated into TSMC’s new packaging architecture called Wafer-Level Multi-Chip technology, or WMCM.
If you’re not familiar, Apple conventionally used package-on-package, or PoP, designs for its chips, which means that the DRAM would sit on top of the application processor. The reason why Apple made this design choice was to reduce power consumption and latency, but it also traps heat in the packaging area. Ultimately, this could allow the processor to throttle and deliver reduced power.
In the latest leak, it can be seen that the DRAM has been moved to the side of the package, which should reduce thermal coupling between the two components. What this means is that heat transfer would be much more efficient for sustained workloads. The design is also slated to bring LPDDR6 memory with a 96-bit memory bus for more power-efficient bandwidth.
Additional details of the A20 Pro chip suggest that the size would be more or less the same as the current A19 Pro chip. However, the Neural Processing Unit, or NPU, would be larger for better AI performance. Do take the news with a grain of salt, as the leaked image is not proven to be authentic or confirmed by Apple.
What makes the leak a bit credible is the fact that the WMCM technology has been rumored for the iPhone 18 Pro for a while. The A20 Pro chip will be found in the iPhone 18 Pro models and the foldable iPhone, and it will be based on TSMC’s 2nm N2 fabrication. In comparison to the current A19 Pro chip, the A20 Pro could bring up to 15 percent faster performance.
We will share more details on the chip and its performance as soon as further information is available. Would you upgrade to the iPhone 18 Pro based on performance alone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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