Qualcomm Announces New SnapDragon Wear 3100 for Wear OS by Google

[Sniperfox47]

 

Link to the official press release: https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2018/09/10/qualcomm-snapdragon-wear-3100-platform-supports-new-ultra-low-power-system

Link to the product details page: https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon-wear-3100-platform

 

So this is a little positive and a little disappointing. Not everything is known at this point but most of the SOC's platform has been revealed.

 

Let's start with the disappointments first:

 

Quote

In this architecture, the high-performance quad core A7 processors, the highly efficient integrated DSP,[...]

Quote

CPU

Quad ARM Cortex A7

CPU Clock Speed: Up to 1.2 GHz

GPU	Qualcomm® Adreno™ 304 GPU

So from these two quotes we know that unfortunately the main application processor will be the same quad core A7 design used on the SDW2100 paired with the same GPU as before. That's a little bit of a letdown. We don't know for sure that it's still using the same 28nm process, but based on it being clocked at the same max of 1.2GHz and having no mention of being a Custom or Semicustom design, it's pretty safe to say.

 

Note I said main application processor though as the new chip *does* have an additional coprocessor that I'll detail further down.

 

Quote

CELLULAR MODEM

Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ X5 LTE modem

Peak Download Speed: 1 Gbps Peak Upload Speed: 150 Mbps

WI-FI

WCN3620

RF

WTR2965

LOCATION

Gen 8C Satellite: GPS, Glonass, Beidou, Galileo Terrestrial: Wi-Fi, Cellular

And the second letdown is that the LTE, Wifi/Bluetooth, RFFE, and GPS/G/B/G radios/controllers are all the same ones in the SD Wear 2100.

 

So that all sounds pretty disappointing so far, but thankfully that's not where the big focus of these new chipsets have been so it's not as bad as it sounds.

 

Let's get onto the good stuff:

Quote

[...]and a new ultra-low power co-processor work in conjunction with each other to help customers re-imagine new smartwatch experiences while supporting extended battery life

Quote

The new co-processor, the Qualcomm® QCC1110, has been designed from the ground up and is at the heart of the Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform. It is incredibly small at ~21mm2, is optimized for ultra-low power operation, and acts as a powerful companion to the main processor, re-defining audio, display, and sensor experiences for next generation smartwatches. The co-processor also integrates a deep learning engine for custom workloads, such as keyword detection, and is extensible over time.

Quote

CO-PROCESSOR

QCC1110

Finishing off the introductory quote from earlier we have one of the biggest changes to these new processors. No details have been released yet about this new coprocessor but We do know that it's *much* more power efficient than the main application processor, handles complications and 2D drawing for ambient watchfaces, can handle colour data for coloured ambient displays, and is responsible for the new high efficiency watch mode that includes a seconds hand. Hopefully this should help improve battery life significantly with ambient display turned on, and having better handling of complications in ambient mode will be nice.

 

Quote

Co-Processor

• Ground up design to support enhanced ambient, dedicated sports, and traditional watch modes experiences
• Works alone or in conjunction with the main processor
• Small footprint: ~21mm^2
• Cortex M0 processor running near threshold voltages
• Integrates custom designed SRAM, dedicated PMU, a deep learning engine for custom workloads, and range of I/Os
• Runs highly efficient event-driven RTOS

Nevermind, correction of my earlier claim. We do know most of the details. It's a Semicustom Cortex M0 meaning that it should be *crazy* power efficient. Some other interesting details. This is from the SDW3100 Product Brief.

 

Quote

Additionally, the Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform includes a new wearable power management sub-system (PMW3100) to support lower power and higher integration, 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.

This is the part that interests me more though. There is a totally new PMIC on this SoC designed specifically for smartwatch applications. This is in addition to the existing DSP, and from the sounds of it includes it's own DSP in addition to the one from the SDW2100. Sounds like it's going to be a sensor/radio hub kind of deal which should hopefully further improve battery life.

 

Quote

NFC

NQ330 NQ330

Next generation NFC from NXP

While not mentioned in the press release the chips also seem to have an integrated NFC chipset built right in. This means we should see *substantially* more watches with NFC support since it's already right on package and doesn't require an additional support chip. Good news for users of Google Pay.

 

All through the press release they talk up just how much more power efficient these new SoCs should be as well as how much more dynamic and user tailored the experiences can be. Need a high quality dynamic watch face for your fashion watch? A constant stream of sensor data for a fitness watch? A super low power mode for a more traditional watch? The SDW3100 has you covered. That's great to hear.\

 

My biggest concern however is size. The SDW2100 is already pretty big for a smartwatch chipset at 10mmx10mm (100mm^2) With the addition of a 21mm^2 coprocessor, additional PMIC, NFC chipsets, and a few other things without any obvious shrinks from existing components I'm worried about just how big this package could be. I don't imagine we'll see any Apple Watch sized WearOS devices soon, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

 

 

Sorry this was so dense, I know it's a bit more technical than a lot of news here and might be hard to digest, I'm just glad to see that Qualcomm hasn't *completely* abandoned WearOS. I'm really stoked to see what smartwatches take advantage of these new features. How about all of you?

[rcmaehl]

All this new tech and Sony still hasn't released a new smartwatch in 3+ years.

[RollinLower]

still rocking the original Huawei Watch, and it hasnt let me down yet with battery life still extending well past a day for me. 

that being said, a smartwatch which you only have to charge every few days does sound appealing...

[Trixanity]

Ffs...

 

Use Globalfoundries 22nm FDX and A35 cores. Higher performance, lower power and smaller area rolled into one massive upgrade. It's that straight forward.

 

They'll avoid the costs associated with finFET too.

[Sniperfox47]

28 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

Ffs...

 

Use Globalfoundries 22nm FDX and A35 cores. Higher performance, lower power and smaller area rolled into one massive upgrade. It's that straight forward.

 

They'll avoid the costs associated with finFET too.

You do run into other problems with A35 though like finding a ULP memory controller that pairs well with them, and the AArch64 code taking up more memory space, with AArch32 not being as power efficient on the A35. While less of an issue the extra space that AArch64 code would take up on storage is also pretty significant when you only have 4GB of storage to work with. Also the size of the cores is substantially larger which is a big problem for smartwatches. It's just not a good fit.

 

I totally understand why they stuck with the A7. The only other real option for these devices would be the Cortex-A32 which is also 32-bit optimized, but it hasn't been rolled out in any commercial products previously (so it's a big risk) and doesn't honestly offer much over the A7 for it's extra price.

 

If you're looking for ULV CPUs you're basically stuck with either the Cortex-A7 or a custom design based on the A7 or A32.

[Trixanity]

13 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

You do run into other problems with A35 though like finding a ULP memory controller that pairs well with them, and the AArch64 code taking up more memory space, with AArch32 not being as power efficient on the A35. While less of an issue the extra space that AArch64 code would take up on storage is also pretty significant when you only have 4GB of storage to work with.

 

I totally understand why they stuck with the A7. The only other real option for these devices would be the Cortex-A32 which is also 32-bit optimized, but it hasn't been rolled out in any commercial products previously (so it's a big risk) and doesn't honestly offer much over the A7 for it's extra price.

 

If you're looking for ULV CPUs you're basically stuck with either the Cortex-A7 or a custom design based on the A7 or A32.

You're right about memory but capacity per chip is still going up so it should be a problem that solves itself... eventually.

 

I'm quite sure Qualcomm makes their own memory controllers so that would most likely be their own job.

 

I forgot about A32 and it's the logical successor. It still increases performance significantly while being lower power. I see it like a band-aid: you have to rip it off at some point so might as well do it now and do it quickly. It's an up front expense like any first gen product but there's plenty of ways to capitalize on the development besides wearables. There's IoT and tons of embedded applications where Qualcomm could score some solid revenue. The margins may end up being terrible but growth is growth.

 

But even if we write off updates to the core design; moving to FD-SOI would be a huge improvement across the board and with a clear update path and roadmap. 

 

Co-processors and other IC design is the shit right now (especially at Qualcomm - it's practically their business model these days) but that's another R&D expense in the same vein as updating cores or process nodes (although I wouldn't dare to speculate on what each avenue costs).

[Commodus]

It's a much-needed update and could be key to truly effective ambient modes on Wear OS watches, but at the same time there's a "is that all there is?" quality to it.

 

People wonder why the Apple Watch keeps dominating the smartwatch market, and it's partly because of things like this -- waiting two years for a CPU update whose improvements are fuzzy.  It's hard to get excited about a Wear OS watch when you're not even sure if it'll be a significant improvement over a two-year-old model.  I want to see fiercely competitive Android-powered watches, but I'm not sure we're going to get them unless it turns out the 3100 has more of a practical benefit than it seems.

[ScratchCat]

2 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

The SDW2100 is already pretty big for a smartwatch chipset at 10mmx10mm (100mm^2) With the addition of a 21mm^2 coprocessor, additional PMIC, NFC chipsets, and a few other things without any obvious shrinks from existing components I'm worried about just how big this package could be

This seems simply too large for a smartwatch processor. The A10 has a die size of 125mm^2 on TSMC's 16nm - this chip has a die size equivilant to that of a chip which has two much larger cores, a huge CPU probably many times more cache and so on; The difference between 28nm and 16nm cannot explain all that. Planar vs 3D plus the shrink maybe.

 

At least the extra die space is invested in the correct place, improving power efficiency while in standby.

1 hour ago, Commodus said:

It's a much-needed update and could be key to truly effective ambient modes on Wear OS watches, but at the same time there's a "is that all there is?" quality to it.

The improvement in efficiency might be the most user benefiting addition - increasing the battery life to a point where charging is only needed every week for a light user.

 

For a phone it is acceptable to need to be charged daily, you can't keep your phone on your person while you sleep and simply put it on a bedside table where it can be charged. A watch on the other hand previously would rarely be taken off (if mechanical and waterproof) and doesn't need to be taken off when sleeping - a user needs to go through the extra effort to take the watch off and charge it every other day if the battery life were poor , a potential fustration.

[Drak3]

1 hour ago, Commodus said:

People wonder why the Apple Watch keeps dominating the smartwatch market, and it's partly because of things like this

No, it's down to Apple advertising heavily and being perceived as the most fashionable smartwatch.

[Commodus]

7 minutes ago, ScratchCat said:

The improvement in efficiency might be the most user benefiting addition - increasing the battery life to a point where charging is only needed every week for a light user.

 

For a phone it is acceptable to need to be charged daily, you can't keep your phone on your person while you sleep and simply put it on a bedside table where it can be charged. A watch on the other hand previously would rarely be taken off (if mechanical and waterproof) and doesn't need to be taken off when sleeping - a user needs to go through the extra effort to take the watch off and charge it every other day if the battery life were poor , a potential fustration.

It'd definitely be helpful, although we have to be careful not to overhype that part.  Remember how Pebble (and more recently Samsung) touted battery life as a huge advantage?  Yeah.  Wear OS stands a better chance, but people are already taking their watches off every day... ultimately it's about the experience of the watch, and long battery life is a nice perk.

[Commodus]

5 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

No, it's down to Apple advertising heavily and being perceived as the most fashionable smartwatch.

That's only part of it.  If advertising was everything, Fossil and Samsung would at least be competitive!

 

In a sense, you could boil things down to one phrase: Apple actually gives a damn about smartwatches.  The marketing doesn't just help sales, it reflects the attitude of a company that updates its watches every year and is determined to push the technology as far as it can.  It's not just Qualcomm that's holding back competing smartwatches -- Google has this lackadaisical approach to its software, and Samsung just released a new smartwatch that's basically a slightly faster version of a model it released in 2016.  You can't help but think that the market would be different if Apple's competitors offered more than a collective shrug.

[Sniperfox47]

4 hours ago, Commodus said:

That's only part of it.  If advertising was everything, Fossil and Samsung would at least be competitive!

 

In a sense, you could boil things down to one phrase: Apple actually gives a damn about smartwatches.  The marketing doesn't just help sales, it reflects the attitude of a company that updates its watches every year and is determined to push the technology as far as it can.  It's not just Qualcomm that's holding back competing smartwatches -- Google has this lackadaisical approach to its software, and Samsung just released a new smartwatch that's basically a slightly faster version of a model it released in 2016.  You can't help but think that the market would be different if Apple's competitors offered more than a collective shrug.

I mean realistically what more do you expect out of them? It's not like hardware is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was 3-4 years ago, especially on the ultra low power side.

 

The "leaps and bounds" improvements of the Apple watch 2 over the Apple watch 1 is down to the fact that the Apple Watch 1 was massively underpowered compared against literally any other smartwatch on the market. And then the Apple watch 3 is basically a slightly faster Apple watch 2 with optional LTE. The only thing that's truly "pushing the bounds" with the Apple watch is it's form factor and the weakness of that shows when you need to use it for anything connected.

 

There's not really anywhere to go with the smartwatch market over the past few years. Would you rather they release trivial yearly updates with no real changes? For all your praise of the Apple Watch, it really does nothing spectacularly better than what any other smartwatch does.

[Commodus]

10 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

I mean realistically what more do you expect out of them? It's not like hardware is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was 3-4 years ago, especially on the ultra low power side.

 

The "leaps and bounds" improvements of the Apple watch 2 over the Apple watch 1 is down to the fact that the Apple Watch 1 was massively underpowered compared against literally any other smartwatch on the market. And then the Apple watch 3 is basically a slightly faster Apple watch 2 with optional LTE. The only thing that's truly "pushing the bounds" with the Apple watch is it's form factor and the weakness of that shows when you need to use it for anything connected.

 

There's not really anywhere to go with the smartwatch market over the past few years. Would you rather they release trivial yearly updates with no real changes? For all your praise of the Apple Watch, it really does nothing spectacularly better than what any other smartwatch does.

Well, it is leaps and bounds... from Apple.  The first gen was pokey, but I'd argue that the chip in Series 3 is ahead of the Snapdragon Wear 3100 in some regards, let alone Series 4.  Also, as a Series 3 owner... well, you're not really accurate.  The performance improvement is more noticeable (Apple says 70 percent, but that's hard to quantify), and it enables things that weren't possible before, like voice feedback on Siri.  And one of the unstated things is that the battery life is considerably better -- that is, you can realistically get two days out of it where Series 2 was still more of a one-day watch.  I suppose my beef with the Galaxy Watch is that the performance difference doesn't affect much besides maybe a slightly smoother UI.

 

To me, the Apple Watch's technical prowess comes from its ability to stuff in a load of features (GPS, water resistance, NFC, heart rate monitor, LTE), a fast processor and solid battery life into a reasonably-sized case.  It's still a bit sad how smartwatch shopping for Android usually involves either buying a gigantic device or deciding which major feature you're going to give up to get decent sizing.  The launch of the Skagen Falster 2 was honestly a relief because it actually covered all the bases without looking like some overgrown beast.

[Sniperfox47]

30 minutes ago, Commodus said:

Well, it is leaps and bounds... from Apple.  The first gen was pokey, but I'd argue that the chip in Series 3 is ahead of the Snapdragon Wear 3100 in some regards, let alone Series 4.  Also, as a Series 3 owner... well, you're not really accurate.  The performance improvement is more noticeable (Apple says 70 percent, but that's hard to quantify), and it enables things that weren't possible before, like voice feedback on Siri.  And one of the unstated things is that the battery life is considerably better -- that is, you can realistically get two days out of it where Series 2 was still more of a one-day watch.  I suppose my beef with the Galaxy Watch is that the performance difference doesn't affect much besides maybe a slightly smoother UI.

 

To me, the Apple Watch's technical prowess comes from its ability to stuff in a load of features (GPS, water resistance, NFC, heart rate monitor, LTE), a fast processor and solid battery life into a reasonably-sized case.  It's still a bit sad how smartwatch shopping for Android usually involves either buying a gigantic device or deciding which major feature you're going to give up to get decent sizing.  The launch of the Skagen Falster 2 was honestly a relief because it actually covered all the bases without looking like some overgrown beast.

You do realize that all of the things you just praised the Apple Watch for also exist on pretty much every Snapdragon Wear 2100 watch right? The 2 year old chipset you're saying there should have been improvements over.

 

Real world use case the life on my Mother's Apple Watch Series 3 is about equal to my Huawei Watch 2. If I disable Always on Display, a feature the Apple Watch still lacks, the HW2 gets a longer battery life by a good stretch. If I start doing a GPS run and streaming music through the watches the HW2 gets a longer battery life by a good stretch.

 

Performance wise the Apple Watch feels so snappy mostly because the CPU ramps it's two cores up a lot faster and doesn't hotplug, but raw performance there's no indication of it being any faster. I'd check but I can't install geekbench on the Apple Watch >.>

 

As I said the only *real* benefit the Apple Watch has over other watches on the market is form factor and that comes at a cost.

[Commodus]

1 hour ago, Sniperfox47 said:

You do realize that all of the things you just praised the Apple Watch for also exist on pretty much every Snapdragon Wear 2100 watch right? The 2 year old chipset you're saying there should have been improvements over.

 

Real world use case the life on my Mother's Apple Watch Series 3 is about equal to my Huawei Watch 2. If I disable Always on Display, a feature the Apple Watch still lacks, the HW2 gets a longer battery life by a good stretch. If I start doing a GPS run and streaming music through the watches the HW2 gets a longer battery life by a good stretch.

 

Performance wise the Apple Watch feels so snappy mostly because the CPU ramps it's two cores up a lot faster and doesn't hotplug, but raw performance there's no indication of it being any faster. I'd check but I can't install geekbench on the Apple Watch >.>

 

As I said the only *real* benefit the Apple Watch has over other watches on the market is form factor and that comes at a cost.

Yes -- as I just wrote, it's not that those features are novel, it's that they're all in one place, and in a watch that isn't this enormous beast of a thing.  I can't tell you how many Wear OS watches I see where they look good, come in a reasonable size... and instantly torpedo their appeal because they don't have some extremely useful thing like NFC or a heart rate monitor.  And of course, the fact remains that even watches released this month are using two-year-old chips that aren't going to age well.

 

Besides, isn't form factor extremely important in a watch?  Part of what I like about Apple's design is that it acknowledges the existence of women (and people with thin wrists in general, for that matter).  I don't think women need stereotypically feminine watches, but they do need smaller cases and designs that don't look like they were built solely for testosterone-laden jocks.

 

As it stands, it feels like we may want to revisit this conversation after tomorrow, when Apple unveils its Series 4 watches.  I'm not expecting an always-on display or week-long battery life, but something tells me Snapdragon Wear 3100 won't seem so enticing after that.

[Sniperfox47]

On 9/11/2018 at 10:34 AM, Commodus said:

As it stands, it feels like we may want to revisit this conversation after tomorrow, when Apple unveils its Series 4 watches.  I'm not expecting an always-on display or week-long battery life, but something tells me Snapdragon Wear 3100 won't seem so enticing after that.

The watch announcement just happened. The only new features relate to the SoC is the fact that it's not a 64-bit core with higher performance. Not sure why they switched to a 64 bit core but good on them. Got to wonder what chip it's based on.

 

They said themselves same battery life as the S3 except with a longer workout time (6 hours, up from 4 hours). The workout time is nice and should put it on par with my HW2, but the SDW3100 should have comparable improvements with it's PMIC in additional to improvements to battery life.

 

I wouldn't say the improvements in the S4 is worse or better than the SDW3100 but it's interesting to see them going in *much* different directions.

[Bananasplit_00]

Seems like all the more reason to wait a bit longer still to get a new SmartWatch. I really do miss my LG Watch Style

[Origami Cactus]

Finally there is an always on second hand on my watch!

And Apple Watch still can't even show minutes on an always on display?

[Guest]

Going for the name A7 for a processor? Uh-oh.

11 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

Finally there is an always on second hand on my watch!

And Apple Watch still can't even show minutes on an always on display?

Mine shows hours, minutes and seconds. 

[Origami Cactus]

11 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

Going for the name A7 for a processor? Uh-oh.

Mine shows hours, minutes and seconds. 

Oh, so apple finally has always on display?

I mean that it shows hours minutes and seconds always, so even if you are not looking at it or have taken it off your han etc. If that is the case with your apple watch then glad to see apple finally catch up.

Because as far as i remember the first few applewatches just turned off the screen, and you had to do a weird gesture or tap to wake them up.

 

 

[Sniperfox47]

11 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

Going for the name A7 for a processor? Uh-oh.

Is it safe to assume you're worried because of Apples A-series SoCs? The ARM Cortex-A series of Processors has existed well before Apples A series.

 

The A7 cores were released back in 2011, they're not new. And the original Cortex A8 came out in 2005, 5 years before Apple started their naming scheme.

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

Oh, so apple finally has always on display?

I mean that it shows hours minutes and seconds always, so even if you are not looking at it or have taken it off your han etc. If that is the case with your apple watch then glad to see apple finally catch up.

Because as far as i remember the first few applewatches just turned off the screen, and you had to do a weird gesture or tap to wake them up.

 

 

They've had it since the watch came out, and I'd hardy call looking at your watch a weird gesture. 

[Sniperfox47]

2 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

They've had it since the watch came out, and I'd hardy call looking at your watch a weird gesture. 

That's not an always on display. If your arm is resting on the table you have to physically lift it for the time to come on, or physically interact with it. That's a weird gesture.

 

But perhaps more importantly if you're carrying stuff in your arms and need to glance at the time you can't because you can't do the look at your watch gesture. I used my Mom's Apple watch series 3 for ~2 weeks when I borrowed her iPhone and it was a shocking difference for my personal work situation.

 

It may not be an issue for some people but for others it's a fairly significant deficiency.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

That's not an always on display. If your arm is resting on the table you have to physically lift it for the time to come on, or physically interact with it. That's a weird gesture.

 

But perhaps more importantly if you're carrying stuff in your arms and need to glance at the time you can't because you can't do the look at your watch gesture. I used my Mom's Apple watch series 3 for ~2 weeks when I borrowed her iPhone and it was a shocking difference for my personal work situation.

 

It may not be an issue for some people but for others it's a fairly significant deficiency.

I works every time for me, whether my hand is resting on my desk or whether I'm holding groceries. You need to lift your hand, as you normally look at a watch, or slightly tilt your hand. It's exactly like using a regular watch. It's better this way too, I don't want everyone to see my notifications every time I get one on my watch. 

[Sniperfox47]

1 minute ago, RorzNZ said:

I works every time for me, whether my hand is resting on my desk or whether I'm holding groceries. You need to lift your hand, as you normally look at a watch, or slightly tilt your hand. It's exactly like using a regular watch. It's better this way too, I don't want everyone to see my notifications every time I get one on my watch. 

Like I said, it may not be an issue for some people, but for my work situation it definitely is. Or take the scenario where you're at your desk using a mouse, how do you simultaneously continue to move your mouse while also twisting your wrist to look at the time?

 

I've never had that issue with a digital sports watch prior to my smartwatch, I never had that issue with my Pebble, and I never had that issue with my Huawei Watch, or Huawei Watch 2, that's why the change was incredibly jarring for me. I rely on timers and time checking pretty regularly and use my hands constantly at work, so extra gestures I need to take to get the time to show up is a really big issue for me.

 

On Android Wear you can turn of notification peek and turn on wrist gestures and then you can just get a vibration and check your last notification with a flick of the wrist so it's really not much different.

 

But ultimately this thread is about the SoC, and none of these features are SoC differences between the platforms, so maybe we should wrap it back onto topic?