Abstract
Another year, another new iPhone. When Apple unveil their latest hardware, there’s always plenty to talk about. This year, however, it’s the engineering developments from a relatively obscure Dutch company called ASML behind the scenes that have made the big breakthrough.
The A14 processor is powered by a new 5nm chipset. This means that the transistors have been shrunk down to only about 25 atoms wide - allowing 3.3 billion more to be packed in.
Many industry insiders doubted the advance could be delivered so soon. ASML pioneered a way to carve circuitry patterns into silicon via a process called extreme ultraviolet lithography. This means that it's currently the only company making them - and they are still more cost-effective than alternative options, in part because of a low defect rate.
Moving to 5nm is key to making our handsets smarter. As chips advance, more tasks that used to be sent to remote computer servers for processing can be done locally. Combining this with increasing connectivity speeds from 5G networks provides enormous potential. These step change improvements in processors will revolutionise the technology we use every day, making it faster, smarter and more efficient.
