(Source: androidauthority)Wear OS smartwatches have been almost stagnant in recent years. Since the release of the Snapdragon W5/+ Gen 1 chip in 2022, Qualcomm has hardly paid any attention to this platform, with only Samsung continuing to develop wearable device chips. For instance, Google’s smartwatch has been using the same Qualcomm platform for three consecutive years. Although there have been some rumors about RISC-V based system-on-chips (SoCs) and next-generation chips, there have been no specific details until now.According to reliable evidence seen by Android Authority, Qualcomm is indeed developing a new wearable platform and has obtained some specifications. If this new platform is officially released, it is expected to bring much-needed performance improvements to the next generation of Wear OS wearable devices.For a long time, Qualcomm’s investment in wearable chips has not been as meticulous as that for its smartphone chips. Most of its wearable chips are slightly modified versions of existing smartphone chips, with some even just using a more advanced process node. In fact, some of the early reference designs provided to OEMs by Qualcomm used unmodified smartphone chips directly. Of course, Qualcomm does make some necessary optimizations to the chips (such as for sensor hubs and wireless communication), but it has never truly prioritized creating fully customized designs for wearable devices. In the past, the only customized part of the platform was the external co-processor chip, but even then, they tried to use off-the-shelf IP and manufactured them in the cheapest way possible.For example, the QCC5100 co-processor of the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 integrates Arm-designed Ethos ML cores, Cadence’s HiFi 5 DSP, and Think Silicon’s Nema|pico 2.5D GPU, even though Qualcomm itself has proprietary cores capable of executing these functions and could easily scale them down for use in the co-processor.However, it seems that Qualcomm may finally be taking this category seriously. We have learned about a new chip—codenamed Aspen, model SW6100—that is currently in internal testing at Qualcomm. Although the specific name is not yet confirmed, I suspect it may eventually be named W5 Gen 2 or W6 Gen 1.We also have a lot of information about this chip. First, it is manufactured using TSMC’s process, although the specific node is unclear. Considering that Samsung’s process currently has disadvantages in energy efficiency, this change alone could significantly improve the platform’s energy efficiency. Additionally, the new chip will upgrade the memory controller to support LPDDR5X (in contrast, W5 Gen 1 only supports LPDDR4), which is expected to bring some degree of battery life improvement. A new co-processor named QCC6100 has also emerged, but we currently have no details about it.The CPU core architecture of the chip has also been revealed—1× Cortex-A78 + 4× Cortex-A55, which is a huge upgrade compared to the previous generation. Previously, Qualcomm was still using Cortex-A53 (an outdated core from 2012), and now it not only uses the more modern Cortex-A55 cluster but also adds a stronger Cortex-A78 big core, which will greatly improve performance. Interestingly, this configuration is not unique to Qualcomm—Samsung’s Exynos W1000 also uses the exact same architecture.Of course, these cores are still not “new”; it would be better if we could see newer architecture cores in watches in the future, but for now, this upgrade is unprecedented. Perhaps Qualcomm is making a rational choice to balance power consumption and performance, as such strong performance is not necessary in a smartwatch.Interestingly, Qualcomm had previously collaborated with Google to develop a wearable chip based on RISC-V architecture. However, from this exposure, it seems that this project may not be realized in the short term and may even have been shelved. The use of Cortex-A78 cores in SW6100 indicates that there are currently almost no powerful enough RISC-V licensed cores available to replace it, so how Qualcomm plans to position itself with RISC-V in the future remains to be seen.We do not yet know the official release date of the SW6100, but if it goes into mass production smoothly, this chip is expected to appear in Wear OS smartwatches in 2026.