Apple is said to be reversing the current trend of using older chipsets in base iPhone models and instead equipping all four iPhone 16 models with A18 branded chips, according to supply chain analyst Jeff Pu.

iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are powered by the A16 Bionic chip, which was also used in last year’s iPhone 14 Pro models. iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are equipped with TSMC’s latest A17 Pro chip based on 3nm node.

Pu believes that Apple will use TSMC’s A18 chip, which will be produced with TSMC’s second-generation 3nm technology, known as N3E, in all four iPhone 16 models. This process will be cheaper and have better throughput compared to TSMC’s first-generation 3nm process N3B, which is used for the A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro models.

Sharing his predictions about the chipsets to be used in each iPhone 16 model, Pu believes that standard iPhone 16 models will receive the A18 chip and Pro models will receive the A18 Pro. As mentioned earlier, all chips will be produced using TSMC’s N3E process.

However, it’s important to note that Pu probably made an educated guess about the marketing names, as the launch of the iPhone 16 series is a year away. It is not yet known whether Apple will actually use the A18 and A18 Pro branding or will use the A17 and A18 Pro branding as in recent years.

Despite the uncertainty over marketing names, Pu has a good track record of predicting Apple’s plans. He was the first source to report that the iPhone 15 Pro models will come with increased 8 GB RAM, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max will have a higher starting price than the iPhone 14 Pro Max.