Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 has low power architecture for smartwatches
Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform for smartwatches is based on a new low power system architecture designed to deliver a rich interactive mode, says Qualcomm, and to extend battery life.
Snapdragon Wear 3100 is based on a new low power hierarchical system architecture approach in which quad core A7 processors, an integrated DSP, and a low power co-processor work in conjunction to help customers re-imagine smartwatch experiences. “The new capabilities are designed to allow consumers to enjoy the beauty of a fashion watch with the power of a smartwatch, the battery life of a sports watch with the richness of a smartwatch, and the utility of an analogue watch with the flexibility of a smartwatch,” says the company.
The low power system architecture and the Wear OS from Google, can help deliver a rich interactive mode, bring in new personalised experiences and support extended battery life (up to 15 hours) for smartwatches. Examples of personalised experiences are the enhanced ambient mode, dedicated sports experiences, and traditional watch mode. The enhanced ambient mode helps the smartwatch to meet consumer desires for a fashion watch by supporting a smooth second hand, up to 16 colours, live complications and improved brightness. The dedicated sports experiences is designed to allow active users to go for an ultra-marathon, swim long distances, bike for miles, or hike the mountains with GPS and heart rate turned on for the duration. The traditional watch mode is designed to make it possible for consumers to continue to enjoy their beautiful watch for extended periods of time. Each one of these personalised experiences are supported by offloading the display and sensor processing from the A7 processors to the low power co-processor.
The first customers – Fossil Group, Louis Vuitton, and Montblanc – have already been announced.
The Qualcomm QCC1110 co-processor is small, approximately 21mm2 and acts as a powerful companion to the main processor, re-defining audio, display, and sensor experiences for smartwatches, says Qualcomm. The co-processor also integrates a deep learning engine for custom workloads, such as keyword detection, and is extensible over time.
Additionally, the Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform includes a wearable power management sub-system (PMW3100) to support lower power and higher integration. It also brings in a new DSP framework to support next generation sensor processing in an open execution environment, and implements a new dual display architecture to support the hierarchical approach.
The 4G LTE modem is paired with high-performance Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) power amplifiers, which helps to increase power efficiency in smartwatches, says Qualcomm.
https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon-wear-3100-platform
