How to read this page. Each section starts Simple, then goes to a Deep dive: stop wherever you have what you need. The small numbers are sources: click one to open the original document. Where the maker has not published a figure -- a price, a die size, a factory address -- this page says so rather than estimate it.
1.At a glance
SimpleStart here
A16 Bionic debuted 7 September 2022 exclusively in the Pro models of that year’s iPhone lineup — the first time an A-series chip launched only in the Pro tier, leaving the base model on the previous generation 1.
Deep diveThe technical detail
Apple’s iPhone 14 and 14 Plus, announced the same day, kept the prior year’s A15 Bionic 2 — a deliberate split this page confirms directly from both official releases, not inferred from a spec-sheet gap.
2.Launch and history
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A16 Bionic’s launch marked the start of a two-tier A-series strategy Apple has kept ever since: a new chip for the Pro iPhones each September, while the standard model inherits last year’s Pro-tier silicon.
Deep diveThe technical detail
iPhone 14 and 14 Plus shipped with A15 Bionic — the same chip used in the 2021 iPhone 13 Pro 2 — while iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max introduced A16 Bionic new 1. A16 Bionic then itself became the “hand-me-down” chip a year later, appearing in the standard iPhone 15 and 15 Plus (2023) 3 while iPhone 15 Pro moved on to A17 Pro.
3.What’s inside it
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A six-core CPU (2 performance + 4 efficiency), a five-core GPU with more memory bandwidth, and a 16-core Neural Engine 1.
Deep diveThe technical detail
Apple’s own figures, versus the competition (not a prior Apple chip): CPU “up to 40 percent faster than the competition,” GPU described as an “accelerated 5-core GPU with 50 percent more memory bandwidth” 1. Apple has not disclosed a transistor count or a specific process node for A16 Bionic in either the iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 15 Newsroom releases — both were checked directly, and neither contains “nanometer” wording. The widely-repeated “4-nanometer” figure for this chip traces to industry/analyst commentary on TSMC’s N4P process, not to an Apple statement, and this page does not assert it as Apple-confirmed.
4.Full spec table
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Six CPU cores, a five-core GPU, a 16-core Neural Engine capable of nearly 17 trillion operations per second 1.
Deep diveThe technical detail
| Spec | Apple A16 Bionic |
|---|
| CPU | 6-core: 2 performance + 4 efficiency |
|---|
| GPU | 5-core, 50% more memory bandwidth vs. A15 |
|---|
| Neural Engine | 16-core, nearly 17 trillion operations/sec |
|---|
| Process node | Not stated by Apple in any release found |
|---|
| Transistor count | Not disclosed by Apple |
|---|
| Memory | Not disclosed by Apple |
|---|
Figures per Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro launch material 1. The image-processing claim — “up to 4 trillion operations per photo” — is a camera-pipeline figure combining the ISP and Neural Engine, separate from the raw Neural Engine TOPS number above.
5.Where it’s made
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Apple does not state a process node for A16 Bionic in any official source found. No manufacturer is named.
Deep diveThe technical detail
Both the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 launch releases were checked directly for nanometer wording 13 — neither contains one. This is a genuine gap in Apple’s own public claims for this chip, distinct from A12, A14, A15, A17 Pro, and A20 Pro, each of which does state a node figure. Treat any “4nm” label for A16 Bionic as industry inference, not an Apple statement.
6.Which systems use it
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A16 Bionic shipped in iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max (2022), then in the standard iPhone 15 and 15 Plus (2023) 13. It was not used in iPhone 14 or 14 Plus, which kept A15 Bionic 2.
Deep diveThe technical detail
The iPhone 15/15 Plus release adds one further architectural note: “two high-performance cores that use 20 percent less power” — stated without naming a specific baseline chip for that particular efficiency figure in the release text retrieved 3.
7.Official pricing
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Not applicable. A16 Bionic was never sold as a separate, priced component.
Deep diveThe technical detail
No official Apple source lists a standalone chip price for A16 Bionic.
9.What came before, what came next
SimpleStart here
Came before: A15 Bionic. Came after: A17 Pro, announced September 2023 — the first chip to carry the “Pro” name.
Deep diveThe technical detail
A16 Bionic is the last A-series chip sold under a single name across an entire year’s Pro-tier devices before Apple renamed its next flagship chip “A17 Pro” outright, formalizing the Pro/non-Pro naming split that A15’s dual-GPU binning had only implied.
10.Hidden in plain sight
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This is the first A-series chip that only the expensive iPhones got — the cheaper model was sent back a generation instead.
Deep diveThe technical detail
Every A-series chip before A16 Bionic launched across that year’s entire iPhone lineup, standard and Pro alike. A16 Bionic broke that pattern for good: iPhone 14 and 14 Plus shipped with the old A15 chip 2 while only 14 Pro and Pro Max got the new one 1 — the moment Apple’s iPhone chip strategy split into two tiers rather than one, a structure it has kept in every generation since.