Leifeng.com news, Qualcomm today announced the launch of the latest wearable platforms – the Snapdragon W5+ wearable platform and the Snapdragon W5 wearable platform. Consumers will experience the first OPPO Watch 3 series of the Snapdragon W5 as early as August this year . Going out and asking will launch the Snapdragon W5+ wearable platform.
In addition, 25 terminal designs with the new platform are under development, targeting different market segments.
It is worth noting that Qualcomm has adopted the industry’s most advanced 4nm process technology in the latest W5+/W5 platform. On the whole, compared with the previous generation products, under the new platform hybrid architecture, the enhanced features of the Snapdragon W5+/W5 reduce power consumption by 50%, increase performance by 2 times, and reduce the size by 30%.
Qualcomm’s next-generation wearable platform uses the most advanced manufacturing process, which actually reflects its judgment on the wearable market demand, ultra-low power consumption, breakthrough performance, and slim design. These three characteristics are also enough to summarize the focus of Qualcomm’s latest generation of wearable platform upgrades.
Upgrade focus 1: ultra-low power consumption, battery life from 2 days to 3 days
Snapdragon W5+/Snapdragon W5 is a new product after Qualcomm adopted a new naming system in 2021, and the naming method is naturally different from the previous three generations. Previously, Qualcomm released three generations of wearable platforms in 2016 (Snapdragon 2100), 2018 (Snapdragon 3100), and 2020 (Snapdragon 4100/4100+).
For the platforms in 2016 and 2018, Qualcomm’s SoCs chose the more cost-effective 28nm process, and in 2020, the SoC will be upgraded to 12nm, which can already see Qualcomm’s efforts to achieve low power consumption. On paper, upgrading the process is just a difference in numbers, but for chip design companies, the cost is a multiple or even exponential increase.
The latest generation of Snapdragon W5+/W5 has been directly upgraded from 12nm to 4nm of the same generation of Snapdragon 8, spanning 4 generations of process upgrades, which is enough to see Qualcomm’s ultimate pursuit of wearable platform power consumption.
The reason why Qualcomm has the ultimate pursuit of the power consumption of the Snapdragon W5+/W5 is that in addition to the SoC, the always-on coprocessor in the enhanced hybrid architecture has also been upgraded from the previous generation 28nm to an advanced 22nm process.
The so-called enhanced hybrid architecture is a co-processor in addition to an SoC capable of handling more complex application requirements.
More specifically, large-core SoCs run operating systems such as Wear OS and AOSP, which can implement more complex functions. The coprocessor runs the FreeRTOS system and implements some relatively simple functions, such as display, audio processing, and notification push.
What needs to be added is that the reason why the coprocessor 22nm is advanced is that the coprocessor is a hybrid chip of digital plus radio frequency. In such a hybrid system, 22nm is currently the advanced level in the industry.
There is no doubt that the most advanced process can achieve industry-leading power consumption, especially under the W5+ architecture, different cores run more finely according to different applications, which is the key to further low power consumption.
More than that, Qualcomm has also added a low-power Bluetooth architecture and a low-power island design, also in order to achieve ultra-low power consumption. The Snapdragon W5+ adopts the latest Bluetooth 5.3, which can reduce power consumption. The design architecture of the low-power island can independently power many modules, such as GPS, Wi-Fi, audio, etc. A more refined power supply also helps to minimize power consumption.
There are also low power states. Ding Yong, senior product manager of Qualcomm Technologies, said, “Currently, only Qualcomm can support the low-power state in the industry . We have introduced two working mechanisms: deep sleep and hibernation. In deep sleep mode, all Android-related content is stored in RAM. In the power-off processing of the large core, the power consumption is less than 1mA. In sleep mode, the overall power consumption will be less than 0.5mA.”
The test data more intuitively illustrates the power consumption improvement of the Snapdragon W5+. In typical scenarios such as airplane mode, always-on screen, LTE standby, background notifications, Bluetooth music playback, and GPS positioning, the first-generation Snapdragon W5+ wearable platform can reduce power consumption by 30% to 30% compared to the previous-generation Snapdragon 4100+. 60%.
In typical daily usage scenarios, the battery life is increased by more than 50% , which means that a smartwatch that used to only be able to stand by for 2 days can use the new generation of Qualcomm wearable platform, and the battery life can be increased by one day.
Upgrade focus 2: Improve performance and add machine learning processing cores
Advanced processes are always associated with high performance. The same is true for Qualcomm Snapdragon W5+/W5, because the SoC adopts 1.7GHz quad-core Cortex A53 architecture, supports LPDDR4X memory, 1GHz GPU, supports dual ISP camera design, co-processor adopts Cortex M55 CPU, equipped with 2.5D GPU, with HiFi5 DSP, which is enough to meet the needs of smart watches.
But Qualcomm also added a U55 core for machine learning to the coprocessor for sensor computing. Leifeng.com has learned that algorithms such as exercise fitness, stable sleep, safety monitoring, as well as ECG, blood oxygen, sleep monitoring, heart rate monitoring, and fall detection are all processed by the U55 machine learning core to ensure that it operates in low-power mode. run.
The design of the enhanced hybrid architecture also requires chip designers to better select processors according to the application to achieve the best balance of performance and power consumption.
The important value of the large-core SoC is to achieve a very process application experience, based on AOSP or Wear OS, it can support 3D dials, responsive application scrolling, smooth video playback, 3D map navigation, real-time image recognition, LTE two-way video calls Wait for the experience.
The coprocessor pays more attention to the reduction of power consumption, including screen display, 2.5D dial refresh, listening to music while running, keyword wake-up, etc., running on the coprocessor.
Upgrade focus 3: High integration supports slim design
The third important upgrade of the Snapdragon W5+/W5 is higher integration. Advanced manufacturing processes can play an important role in achieving a smaller chip area, but it also requires advanced packaging technology.
Pankaj Kedia, senior director of product marketing and global head of smart wearables at Qualcomm Technologies, revealed, “We have adopted a special packaging process that can integrate SoC, PMIC, memory and eMMC storage in the same package to achieve a very high level of integration. , supporting a smaller dial area and a thin and light terminal design.”
The comparison data also intuitively shows that the size of the Snapdragon W5+ is significantly reduced. The SoC of the main chip and the power chip, the area of the Snapdragon W5+ is 90mm 2 , which is 30% smaller than the size of the previous generation Snapdragon 4100+. Integrated RF, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and other chipsets, the Snapdragon W5+ area is reduced by 35%, and the PCB board level, the overall area is reduced by 40%.
In the wearable market, especially the smartwatch market, Apple is thriving. Therefore, if Qualcomm wants to make a breakthrough in the wearable market, it must provide enough products to meet the market demand based on the prediction of market demand, and give OEM manufacturers room for innovation.
From the three important upgrades of the Snapdragon W5+, we can see Qualcomm’s judgment on the wearable market. Among these three major upgrades, the use of the most advanced manufacturing process can be regarded as an important upgrade. Based on the wearable platform built on the most advanced manufacturing process, Qualcomm can achieve lower power consumption, higher performance, and higher integration, which gives OEMs more space. Larger, more conducive to the development of wearable products that make consumers shine.
In addition, in order to meet the differentiated needs of customers, Qualcomm also provides the Snapdragon W5 platform without a coprocessor, and two reference designs for Compal and Pegatron have also been released.
How much influence it can ultimately have on the wearable market also needs products to speak.
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