Qualcomm announces next-gen 4nm chipsets for wearables, to power first OPPO Watch 3 Series

Qualcomm has the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 and the W5 Gen 1, both built on a 4nm process that will serve a boost on performance for next generation Qualcomm-powered wearables.

Photo/ Qualcomm

The chipset maker flaunts the new SoCs offer up to two times performance at only half power usage, and 30% smaller in size as compared to their predecessor, Snapdragon Wear 4100+ Platform (12nm).

The SD W5+ Gen 1 comprises four Cortex A53 cores and one Cortex M55 efficiency core clocked at 250 MHz, Machine Learning unit U55, the A702 GPU clocked at 1 GHz—significantly higher number than SD 4100+’s 320 MHz A504 GPU—an updated memory capacity that supports LPDDR4 at 2133 Mhz, and a 22nm-based highly integrated always-on (AON) co-processor.

The co-processor is the edge of SD W5+ Gen 1 over its vanilla SD W5 Gen 1. The said AON co-processor will handle new operations including low-power Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi, GNSS; new low-power states like Deep Sleep and Hibernate; and an updated LTE modem.

See the full comparison between SD Wear 4100+ and SD W5+ Gen 1 below:

Photo/ Qualcomm

Furthermore, OPPO and Mobvoi—a Beijing-based consumer electronics company—will be the first OEMs to offer products powered by the new SoCs, and there are 25 already designs in the pipeline.

OPPO will be launching the Watch 3 Series as soon as next month. “The Oppo Watch 3 series will be launched in August. As the first smartwatch powered by Snapdragon W5 wearable platform, it will delight our users with better performance,” said Franco Li, OPPO Associate Vice President, President of IoT Business.

Oppo Watch (2020)

Qualcomm also announced partnership with Compal and Pegatron in creation of reference designs that’ll help to speed-up product development for SD W5+ Gen 1 and W5 Gen 1 powered wearables.