The new A11 Bionic processor has been in development for more than three years

Last week, Apple introduced a trio of new iPhones, which brought with them many interesting innovations. Whether it's wireless charging that they all got new models, or the frameless OLED display, which only got iPhone X. All new products also boast a more powerful processor under the hood. This year's version of the new processor is called A11 Bionic, and over the weekend some interesting information about it appeared on the web, which comes from the mouths of Apple employees themselves. It was Phil Shiller and Johny Srouji (head of the processor development division) who talked to the editor-in-chief of the Mashable server. It would be a shame not to share their words.

One of the biggest points of interest was the mention that Apple started developing the first basic technologies on which the new A11 Bionic chip was built more than three years ago. That is, at the time when the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which had an A8 processor, were entering the market.

Johny Srouji told me that when they start designing a new processor, they always try to look at least three years ahead. So basically the moment the iPhone 6 with the A8 processor went on sale, thoughts about the A11 chip and its special Neural Engine first started to take shape. At that time, artificial intelligence and machine learning in mobile phones were definitely not talked about. The idea of ​​the Neural Engine caught on and the processor went into production. So the bet on this technology paid off, even though it took place three years ago. 

The interview also addressed situations in which the development of individual products often gets into - the discovery of new functions and their implementation into an already laid out time plan.

The entire development process is flexible and you can respond to any changes. If the team comes up with a requirement that was not part of the original project, we try to implement it. We can't tell anyone that we'll do our part first and then jump on the next one. This is not how new product development should work. 

Phil Shiller also praised the certain flexibility of Srouji's team.

Over the past few years there have been a few very critical things that needed to be done regardless of the plan Johny's team was following at the time. How many times has it been a question of disrupting several years of development. In the final, however, everything was always successful and in many cases it was a truly superhuman performance. It's amazing to see how the whole team works. 

The new A11 Bionic processor has six cores in a 2+4 configuration. These are two powerful and four economical cores, with the powerful ones being roughly 25% stronger and up to 70% more economical than in the case of the A10 Fusion processor. The new processor is much more efficient in the case of multi-core operations. This is mainly due to the new controller, which takes care of the load distribution across the individual cores, and which operates according to the current needs of the applications.

Powerful cores are not only available for demanding applications such as gaming. For example, simple text prediction can also achieve computing power from a more powerful core. Everything is managed and regulated by a new integrated controller.

If you are interested in the architecture of the new A11 Bionic chip, you can read the entire comprehensive interview <a href="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1932/8043/files/200721_ODSTOUPENI_BEZ_UDANI_DUVODU__EN.pdf?v=1595428404" data-gt-href-en="https://en.notsofunnyany.com/">here</a>. You will learn a lot of essential information about what the new processor takes care of, how it is used for FaceID and augmented reality, and much more.

Source: Mashable