Qualcomm jumps again into the smartwatch marketplace with 4 nm “W5+ Gen1” SoC

Qualcomm jumps back into the smartwatch market with 4 nm “W5+ Gen1” SoC

Qualcomm

Qualcomm’s long-awaited replace to its smartwatch SoC line is bureaucratic. Those chips have in most cases been known as “Snapdragon Put on,” however it feels like that emblem is lifeless, so it is time to meet the “Qualcomm Snapdragon W5+ Gen1” and “Snapdragon W5 Gen1.” Qualcomm guarantees that the chips give you the corporate’s “maximum complex jump but,” which isn’t pronouncing a lot for a corporation that in the past went six years between main smartwatch chip releases.

The W5+ does look like a big replace, although. In comparison to 2020’s Put on 4100, Qualcomm is promising “2X efficiency throughout CPU, GPU, digicam, reminiscence, and video/audio,” “50 p.c longer battery lifestyles” offering “days of use,” and a “30 p.c smaller” chip for sleeker designs.

In contrast to the Put on 4100 at its time of unlock, the W5 is constructed on a state of the art 4 nm production procedure. Qualcomm equipped the chip with 4 ARM Cortex A53 CPUs working at as much as 1.7 GHz and an Adreno A702 GPU. The “plus” model features a 2nd 22 nm SOC in response to the Cortex M55 for screen-off background processes, like holding the watch face up to date, staying on best of notifications, and monitoring health stats. Qualcomm guarantees low-power islands for Wi-Fi, GPS, and audio in order that the ones options can be utilized with out lighting fixtures up the entire chip. The SoC has toughen for an LTE modem, Wi-Fi 802.11n (aka Wi-Fi 4), and Bluetooth 5.3

Only the
Amplify / Most effective the “plus” model will get that co-processor.

Qualcomm

It is arduous to understand the place the W5+ will sit down within the Android smartwatch chip hierarchy. Its pageant, the Samsung Exynos W920, has two A55 cores constructed on a 5 nm procedure. Qualcomm has the method node benefit, however Samsung is the usage of more moderen cores, and Qualcomm is the usage of 4 cores in comparison to Samsung’s two. We’d like any person to run Geekbench on each watches, however it feels like the 2 chips will break up single-thread and multi-thread victories. On the very least, the Qualcomm chip is aggressive, confidently marking a brand new technology of the corporate taking the smartwatch marketplace extra severely.

Qualcomm says it already has spherical and sq. watch reference designs from ODMs Compal and Pegatron able to head for companions. That can be useful for almost all of Put on OS producers, who’re most commonly simply style manufacturers that want a large number of third-party assist. If you do not make your individual chips or have Google’s reputedly unique take care of Samsung, Qualcomm is the one sport on the town for smartwatch chips, so the corporate says companions have 25 designs within the pipeline already. Oppo and Mobvoi (the makers of TicWatch) are the primary out of the gate and will have to have new watches with the chips out this autumn.

Record symbol by way of Qualcomm

https://arstechnica.com/units/2022/07/qualcomm-jumps-back-into-the-smartwatch-market-with-4-nm-w5-gen1-soc/

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