Apple’s new iPhone 16e has been launched as the most affordable version of the iPhone 16 series. In order to reach the $599 starting price, Apple has made some hardware changes. According to Apple’s official technical data, the A18 chip used in the iPhone 16e model differs from the A18 processor in the standard iPhone 16.
iPhone 16e processor is not normal A18!
The iPhone 16e’s A18 processor includes a 6-core CPU (2 performance, 4 efficiency cores), a 4-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine. While the CPU and Neural Engine core counts are the same as the standard A18, the GPU is designed to be one core less.
Although this difference is not expected to cause a major performance loss in actual use, it may make a noticeable difference in benchmark tests and graphics-intensive games. After all, there is a physical difference.
Samsung, which released February 2025 update for Galaxy S24 models in South Korea last week, made it available for European variants as well.
Chip binning is a quality control process commonly used in the semiconductor industry. Since it is not possible for each chip to reach the targeted core count or clock speed during production, manufacturers divide these chips into different categories and disable some cores. Apple has also managed to reduce costs by disabling one core of the A18 chip for the iPhone 16e.
The Binned A18 chip comes with one less GPU core than the A18 processor in the iPhone 16, two cores less than the A18 Pro chip used in the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max models. Apple previously used a similar method in the iPad mini (2024) model and offered a trimmed version of the A17 Pro in this device.
