Neural Engine

Apple's Neural Engine (ANE) is the marketing name for a group of specialized cores functioning as a (NPU) dedicated to the of artificial intelligence operations and machine learning tasks.Apple’s ‘Neural Engine’ Infuses the iPhone With AI Smarts by Tom Simonite, Wired. 2017-09-13. They are part of (SoC) designs specified by Apple and fabricated by TSMC.Apple's new iPhones use Souped Up 7nm Processors from TSMC to Overpower Rivals by Jack Purcher, Patently Apple. 2018-09-13.
==History==
The first Neural Engine was introduced in September 2017 as part of the Apple A11 "Bionic" chip. It consisted of two cores that could perform up to 600 billion operations per second for real-time processing of machine learning algorithms dedicated to features such as Animoji and Face ID. However, an API was not yet available for 3rd-party developers. A framework named Core ML was released to allow developers to integrate machine learning into their applications, which could be accelerated by available GPU or Neural Engine hardware. The Neural Engine in the Apple A12 (also called "Bionic") was expanded to eight cores that could process up to 5 trillion operations per second, which was up to nine times faster while using one-tenth of the power of the version in the A11. The 8-core Neural Engine within the Apple A13 that was released in September 2019 was 20% faster while using 15% less power.Build more intelligent apps with machine learning., Apple Developer. Archived 2017-06-06.Apple says its new A13 Bionic chip brings hours of extra battery life to new iPhones by Sean Hollister, The Verge. 2019-09-10.
The Apple A14 was released in October 2020 with the number of Neural Engine cores doubled to 16, providing the ability to perform up to 11 trillion operations per second.All-new iPad Air with advanced A14 Bionic chip available to order starting today, Apple Inc. 2020-10-16. The Apple M1 was released in November 2020 with improved overall performance and power efficiency, but a Neural Engine that was largely unchanged from the A14.Apple unleashes M1, Apple Inc. 2020-11-10. The Apple A15 was announced in September 2021 with 16 Neural Engine cores like earlier models, but with the ability to perform up to 15.8 trillion operations per second.Apple Event — September 14 by Apple, YouTube. 2021-09-14. However, Neural Engine performance in the Apple M1 Pro and Max, introduced in the following month, was unchanged from the lower performance of the original M1.Apple Pushes Out Intel With In-House M1 Pro Chip for High-End Laptops by James Morra, Electronic Design. 2021-10-19. The Apple M1 Ultra was introduced in March 2022 which used a previously unrevealed interconnect called UltraFusion to effectively double the number of cores and performance over that of the M1 Max.Apple unveils M1 Ultra, the world’s most powerful chip for a personal computer, Apple Inc. 2022-03-08.
In June 2022, Apple introduced the Apple M2 with 16 Neural Engine cores that could deliver over 40% faster performance than the Apple M1 with the same number of cores, in line with that of the Apple A15.Apple unveils M2, taking the breakthrough performance and capabilities of M1 even further, Apple Inc. 2022-06-06. In September 2022, Apple introduced the Apple A16 with 16 Neural Engine cores on a new 4 nm process that could handle nearly 17 trillion operations per second.Apple Event — September 7 by Apple, YouTube. 2022-09-07. The Apple M2 Ultra was introduced in June 2023, using UltraFusion to double the number of cores and performance over that of preceding M2 chips.Apple introduces M2 Ultra, Apple Inc. 2023-06-05.
In September 2023, Apple introduced the Apple A17 Pro with 16 Neural Engine cores on a new 3 nm process that could handle 35 trillion operations per second.A17 Pro: The New Chip Brain in the iPhone 15 Pro, Pro Max by Stephen Shankland and Joshua Goldman, CNET. 2023-09-12. The Apple S9 was also introduced with 4 cores to support new watchOS features.Apple Watch 9 Gets S9 Chip! by Youssef Mohamed, Medium. 2023-08-25. In late October 2023, the Apple M3 was introduced on the same process, but with 16 cores that could handle 18 trillion operations per second.Apple’s new M3 Pro might come with an unexpected downgrade by Alex Blake, Digital Trends. 2023-10-31. In May 2024, the Apple M4 was introduced on a 2nd-generation 3 nm process, increasing performance of its 16 Neural Engine cores up to 38 trillion operations per second.Apple introduces M4 chip, Apple Inc. 2024-05-07.
===Neural Engine version history===
SoC 	Introduced	Process 	Neural cores	Peak ops/sec.	Note
Apple A11 	Sep. 2017 	10 nm 	2 	600 billion 	First implementation.
Apple A12 	Sep. 2018 	  7 nm 	8 	5 trillion 	90% lower power consumption.
Apple A13 	Sep. 2019 	  7 nm*	8 	6 trillion 	15% lower power. Enhanced 7 nm (N7P).
Apple A14 	Oct. 2020 	  5 nm 	16 	11 trillion 	First 5 nm process (N5).
Apple M1 	Nov. 2020 	  5 nm 	16 	11 trillion 	Comparable to Apple A14
Apple A15 	Sep. 2021 	  5 nm*	16 	15.8 trillion	Enhanced 5 nm process (N5P).
Apple M1 ProApple M1 Max	Oct. 2021 	  5 nm 	16 	11 trillion 	Same as original Apple M1.
Apple M1 Ultra	Mar. 2022 	  5 nm 	32 	22 trillion 	2x Apple M1 Max.
Apple M2 	Jun. 2022 	  5 nm*	16 	15.8 trillion	Comparable to Apple A15.
Apple A16 	Sep. 2022 	  4 nm 	16 	17 trillion 	Improved power efficiency.
Apple M2 ProApple M2 Max	Jan. 2023 	  5 nm*	16 	15.8 trillion	Same as original Apple M2.
Apple M2 Ultra	Jun. 2023 	  5 nm*	32 	31.6 trillion	2x Apple M2 Max.
Apple A17 Pro 	Sep. 2023 	  3 nm 	16 	35 trillion 	First 3 nm process (N3B).
Apple S9 	Sep. 2023 	  5 nm*	4 	 	Derived from Apple A15.
Apple M3 	Oct. 2023 	  3 nm 	16 	18 trillion 	Derived from Apple A17 Pro.
Apple M3 ProApple M3 Max	Nov. 2023 	  3 nm 	16 	18 trillion 	Same as original Apple M3.
Apple M4 	May 2024 	  3 nm*	16 	38 trillion 	Enhanced 3 nm process (N3E).
Apple A18Apple A18 Pro 	Sep. 2024 	  3 nm*	16 	35 trillion 	Optimized for Apple Intelligence.
==References==
==See also==
*Apple Intelligence, an AI platform developed by Apple in partnership with OpenAI.
*Velocity Engine, older vector processing technology used in the PowerPC G4 and G5.
==External links==
*Deploying Transformers on the Apple Neural Engine at Apple Machine Learning (2022-06)
*The Neural Engine — what do we know about it? by Matthijs Hollemans at GitHub
*What is Apple’s neural engine? at Quora
*Neural processor at Wikichip
* at Wikipedia
===Articles===
*The iPhone X’s new neural engine exemplifies Apple’s approach to AI by James Vincent at The Verge (2017-09-13)
*Here’s why Apple believes it’s an AI leader—and why it says critics have it all wrong by Samuel Azon at Ars Technica (2020-08-06)
*Apple Reveals a Multi-Mode Planar Engine for a Neural Processor that could be used in A-Series & screamingly fast M1 Processors by Jack Purcher at Patently Apple (2021-04-08)
Category:Apple components
Category:2017 introductions