Qualcomm’s next Wear OS chip rumored to be the 4nm Snapdragon Wear 5100+

Abner Li | Feb 22 2022 - 8:14 am PT

Qualcomm’s current flagship chip for wearables pales in comparison to what Samsung offers, but that could soon change. A new report today revealed details about the Snapdragon Wear 5100 and 5100+ that Qualcomm previously telegraphed was coming.

According to Winfuture, there are two versions of the chip that differ based on their packaging. The SW5100 sees the SoC and PMIC (power management integrated circuits) separated from each other as part of a Molded Laser Package (MLP), while the SW5100+ is a Molded Embedded Package (MEP) where everything is together.

This more powerful chip also offers an “ultra low power deep sleep mode” that still allows for Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connectivity due to the inclusion of a QCC5100 co-processor, which also features an ARM Ethos Machine Learning Core for fall and heart rate variance detection. There should also be improved LRA haptics on the ‘plus’ variant.

Otherwise, the chips are based on a 4nm design, though it was initially 5nm before a recent change, and Samsung Semiconductor is manufacturing. There are ARM Cortex-A53 cores at 1.7GHz and Adreno 702 GPU with up to 4GB of LPDDR4X RAM and support for eMMC 5.1 storage. That’s the same core as the Wear 4100+ from 2020, but the efficiency gains from 12nm should be sizable.

An ISP makes possible dual cameras (up to 13MP and 16MP) with 1080p video recording and conferencing is touted as a use case. There’s Bluetooth 5.2 and support for LTE. Besides Wear OS, this chip is able to run full Android.

Winfuture does not have any availability or announcements details today, but notes the process change could push back Snapdragon Wear 5100+ availability by a few months.