CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA– Today, Apple revealed the M4 chip, its latest innovation, powering the brand-new iPad Pro. Engineered with cutting-edge second-generation 3-nanometer technology, the M4 chip is a system on a chip (SoC) that sets a new standard for power efficiency in Apple silicon. It facilitates the iPad Pro’s remarkably slim design and supports a new display engine, enhancing the Ultra Retina XDR display’s phenomenal color accuracy, brightness, and precision.
The chip features a new CPU with up to 10 cores and a groundbreaking 10-core GPU, which leverages the latest GPU architecture introduced with the M3 chip. This includes Dynamic Caching, and for the first time on the iPad, hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading, elevating its artificial intelligence capabilities.
The M4 hosts Apple’s most advanced Neural Engine, performing up to 38 trillion operations per second, surpassing the processing power of any AI PC available today. When combined with increased memory bandwidth, next-gen machine learning accelerators in the CPU, and a high-performance GPU, the M4 positions the new iPad Pro as a powerhouse for artificial intelligence applications.
A Leap in Performance and Efficiency
Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies, stated, “The iPad Pro with the M4 chip exemplifies the remarkable outcomes possible when designing top-tier custom silicon. The M4’s energy-efficient performance, coupled with its innovative display engine, not only facilitates the sleek design and transformative display of the iPad Pro but also significantly enhances the CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, and memory system for AI-driven applications. This chip establishes the iPad Pro as the most formidable device in its class.”
Innovations Powering the New iPad Pro
Surpassing the performance of its predecessor, the iPad Pro with the M2, the M4 comprises 28 billion transistors and utilizes second-generation 3-nanometer technology, further optimizing Apple silicon’s energy efficiency. The chip also introduces a new display engine, incorporating advanced technologies to achieve unmatched color accuracy, brightness consistency, and precision in the Ultra Retina XDR display, a revolutionary display made by merging the light from two OLED panels.
Enhanced 10-core CPU
The M4 features an advanced CPU with up to 10 cores, including four high-performance cores and six efficiency cores. These next-gen cores boast better branch prediction, wider decode, and execution engines for the high-performance cores, alongside a deeper execution engine for the efficiency cores. Enhanced with next-gen ML accelerators, the M4 delivers up to 1.5 times faster CPU performance than the potent M2 chip in the prior iPad Pro model.1 From managing complex orchestral compositions in Logic Pro to integrating demanding 4K video effects in LumaFusion, the M4 elevates performance across professional workflows.
Enhanced Graphics Performance with iPad Pro’s GPU
The iPad Pro’s new M4 chip features a 10-core GPU, leveraging the advanced graphics architecture of the M3 series. It introduces Dynamic Caching by Apple, a revolutionary technique that dynamically allocates local memory in real-time, significantly boosting GPU utilization. This enhancement propels the performance of demanding professional applications and games to new heights.
For the first time, hardware-accelerated ray tracing makes its debut on the iPad, offering more realistic shadows and reflections in games and graphically intensive experiences. The GPU also incorporates hardware-accelerated mesh shading, improving geometry processing efficiency and capability. This allows for more complex visual scenes in games and apps. With the M4 chip, apps like Octane render up to four times faster than with M2, maintaining Apple silicon’s top performance per watt. The M4 delivers the same performance as M2 with half the power and matches the latest PC chips’ performance with just a quarter of the power.
Unprecedented Neural Engine Capabilities
The M4 chip houses Apple’s fastest Neural Engine, designed to accelerate AI tasks, capable of performing a staggering 38 trillion operations per second—60 times faster than its predecessor in the A11 Bionic. This, combined with the next-gen ML accelerators, high-performance GPU, and increased unified memory bandwidth, positions the M4 as a powerhouse for AI. The iPadOS’s AI features, such as Live Captions and Visual Look Up, enhance the iPad Pro’s ability to perform extraordinary AI tasks efficiently.
The iPad Pro with M4 effortlessly separates subjects from their backgrounds in 4K videos and generates musical notations in real-time, ensuring efficient, private processing that minimizes app memory usage, response time, and battery impact. The M4’s Neural Engine stands as Apple’s most advanced, outperforming any current AI PC neural processing unit.
Advanced Media Engine for Optimal Streaming
The M4’s Media Engine, the most sophisticated for iPad to date, supports popular video codecs like H.264, HEVC, and ProRes, and introduces hardware-accelerated AV1 playback. This innovation allows for more efficient streaming of high-resolution content.
Environmental Commitment
The M4’s efficiency aligns with Apple’s energy standards, offering all-day battery life and reducing the overall energy consumption and charging frequency. As part of Apple’s commitment to environmental sustainability, the company aims for carbon neutrality across its entire product lifecycle and manufacturing supply chain by 2030.
