Apple A12

Apple A12 Bionic
General information
LaunchedSeptember 12, 2018 (2018-09-12)
DiscontinuedOctober 18, 2022 (2022-10-18)
Designed byApple Inc.
Common manufacturer
Product codeAPL1W81
Max. CPU clock rateto 2.49 GHz
Physical specifications
Transistors
  • 6.9 billion
Cores
GPUApple-designed 4 core "Apple G11P"
Cache
L1 cache128 KB instruction, 128 KB data
L2 cache8 MB
Architecture and classification
ApplicationMobile
Technology node7 nm (N7)
Microarchitecture"Vortex" and "Tempest"
Instruction setA64ARMv8.3-A
Products, models, variants
Variant
  • Apple S4/S5 SiP (cut-down version that utilizes high efficiency cores from A12)
    Apple A12X/A12Z (more advanced version of A12 in iPad Pro and Developer Transition Kit)
History
PredecessorApple A11 Bionic
SuccessorApple A13 Bionic

The Apple A12 Bionic is a 64-bit ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., part of the Apple silicon series, It first appeared in the iPhone XS and XS Max, iPhone XR, iPad Air (3rd generation), iPad Mini (5th generation), iPad (8th generation) and Apple TV 4K (2nd generation). Apple states that the two high-performance cores are 15% faster and 40% more energy-efficient than the Apple A11's, and the four high-efficiency cores use 50% less power than the A11's. It is the first mass-market system on a chip to be built using the 7 nm process.

iOS support for the iPhone XS and XR ended with iOS 18.7.6, released on March 4, 2026, whilst iPadOS support for the aforementioned models is ongoing, with iPadOS 26.3.1 (a), released on March 17, 2026, being the latest update. tvOS support for the 2nd generation Apple TV 4K is ongoing (the latest update being tvOS 26.3).