Why would Apple recycle old chips in the new iPhone?

Apple’s aggressive iPhone updater cycle has us now conditioned to expect better and faster, but the iPhone 14 launch might change all that.

A couple of things lead to this conclusion.

First, back in March, Apple-watcher Ming-Chi Kuo reported that only the 6.1-inch ‌iPhone 14 Pro‌ and the 6.7-inch ‌iPhone 14 Pro‌ Max would be getting the new A16 chip and that 6.1-inch ‌iPhone 14‌ and the 6.7-inch iPhone 14‌ Max will stick with the A15 chip found in the iPhone 13 line up.

Now this tells us something interesting: The iPhone is no longer limited by processor speed since Apple can bundle the older chip into newer handsets without compromising the experience.

Kuo also mentioned at the same time that all four iPhone 14 handsets would get a RAM bump to 6GB (up from 4GB) and that the Pro and Pro Max versions would also get a RAM upgrade from the existing LPDDR4X to LPDDR5.

And now DigiTimes Asiaseems to corroborate this, claiming that Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology are all expecting to see increased sales of LPDDR5 RAM.

So, what will LPDDR5 bring to the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max?

Well, along with increased performance thanks to increased speed (6400 Mbps vs. 4266 Mbps) and an increased performance thanks to a doubling of the bank density (a maximum of 16 banks vs. 8 banks) compared to LPDDR4X, another massive benefit is better power efficiency because LPDDR5 operates at 1.1V compared to 1.2V for LPDDR4X.

iPhone RAM isn’t something that Apple talks about during launches, so either Apple is going to make a big deal of this change, or it’s going to be a silent change that Apple is implementing to give the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max handsets a bigger performance and battery edge over the lower-specification models.