Apple Execs Detail New A19 Pro, In-House Modem, and Wireless Chips for iPhone 17 [Report]

The new iPhone Air is a major part of Apple's latest lineup, but inside the slim phone is another piece of new hardware that signals the company's renewed focus on artificial intelligence. A custom A19 Pro chip introduces a new architecture with neural accelerators on each GPU core, and Apple has also debuted its first-ever wireless chip for iPhone, the N1, alongside a second-generation C1X modem.

In the first U.S. interview about the new chips, Apple's vice president of platform architecture, Tim Millet, sat down with CNBC at Apple Park. "That's where the magic is. When we have control, we are able to do things beyond what we can do by buying a merchant silicon part," he said.




The A19 Pro is a major step forward, with neural accelerators added to the GPU cores to prioritize AI workloads. Apple says it's building the best on-device AI capability available, a move driven by privacy, efficiency, and responsiveness. Millet told CNBC the integration of neural processing is reaching "MacBook Pro class performance inside an iPhone." He explained that while the Neural Engine handles dense matrix math, the GPU previously lacked that capability. "But now we do with A19 Pro," he said.

This year also marks the debut of Apple's first in-house wireless chip for iPhone, the N1, which was previously spotted in code leaks under the codename 'Proxima.' The new chip is in the entire iPhone 17 lineup, replacing Broadcom as the main provider. Arun Mathias, Apple's vice president of wireless technologies, noted the N1's efficiency gains in background tasks like location awareness, which can now be done without waking the main processor as often.

The iPhone Air also features Apple's second-generation C1X modem, a follow-up to the C1 modem that debuted in the iPhone 16e. Mathias said the C1X is "up to twice as fast" as the C1 and "uses 30% less energy" than the Qualcomm modem in the iPhone 16 Pro. Qualcomm modems are still used in the iPhone 17, 17 Pro, and 17 Pro Max models.

Following overheating issues with previous models, the new iPhone 17 Pro also includes a vapor chamber to keep the new chips cool. Kaiann Drance, Apple's vice president of iPhone product marketing, explained that the chamber is positioned in concert with the A19 Pro and is laser-welded into the aluminum unibody to help dissipate heat.


Apple still plans to manufacture some of its chips in the U.S. at TSMC's new Arizona campus. This comes after Apple increased its U.S. spending commitment to $600 billion over the next four years. "We are super excited about TSMC's push into U.S. manufacturing. Obviously it will help us from a time zone perspective, and we also appreciate that the diversity of the supply is also really important," Millet said. When asked how much of that $600 billion would go to custom silicon, Millet said, "I hope it's a lot."

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