Apple is appears to be working on a new chip

Apple is planning a fundamental change in the chip design of its iPhones. In order to increase AI performance, the main memory will in future be installed separately from the main processor. According to an insider report, Samsung has already been commissioned to develop it.

New chip design for AI performance

The rumor mill is bubbling: Apple is said to be planning to no longer connect the main memory (DRAM) directly to the main processor from 2026, but to install it as a separate component. The group wants to achieve optimized performance for Apple Intelligence.

Until now, Apple has relied on a system-on-a-chip (SoC) design in which all important components such as CPU, GPU and RAM are integrated on a single chip. This design, known as package-on-package (PoP), enables compact designs and offers performance advantages. But this concept reaches its limits for the company’s AI plans.

Samsung develops new packaging method

Like the Korean one The Elec magazine reports Apple has commissioned its long-time partner Samsung to research a new packaging method for LPDDR (Low-Power Double Data Rate) memory. The aim is to install the DRAM as an independent component (discrete package) in the future. This change will first be used in 2026, probably with the iPhone 18 and the A20 Pro chip. The main reason for this step is the bandwidth of the memory.

For powerful AI applications on the device itself, the so-called on-device AI, a higher bandwidth is required than the current PoP design can offer. The separate installation allows more I/O pins to be used and thus the data transfer rate to be increased. This design also offers advantages in heat dissipation, which is important in computationally intensive AI processes.

Challenges of the new design

However, the new architecture also brings challenges:

• Higher latencies: The spatial separation of processor and memory could lead to longer response times.
• Space issues: Apple may need to reduce the size of the SoC and even the battery to make room for the separate storage.

This approach is not entirely new for Apple. Macs and iPads have experimented with discrete memory components in the past before returning to the memory-on-package (MoP) design with the M1 chip.