Samsung’s ultra-small chip may define the future of wearable devices
When it comes to Samsung’s smart device chips, many friends may first think of them for smartphones. Exynos1080, Exynos2100, and Exynos2200, which is rumored to have built-in AMDRDNA2 light-tracing GPU. But in fact, compared to mobile phone SoCs whose product capabilities are not very outstanding (at least so far), Samsung's Exynos family still occupies an absolute leading position in technology and design in another field.
And this is Samsung’s Exynos smart wearable device chip family.
How powerful is Exynos’ wearable chip? As early as 2018, the industry's mainstream Qualcomm Wear 2500 still used the 32-bit Cortex-A7 architecture and the old 28nm process. In the same year, Samsung launched a similar chip called Exynos9110.
Exynos9110 uses Samsung’s own 10nm process, and the CPU is based on the 64-bit Cortex-A53 architecture. And more importantly, compared to other wearable chips in the same period that had to use a quad-core CPU design to improve performance because their architecture was too old, Samsung chose the new architecture + dual-core idea, so not only is the performance not bad, but It also has a very obvious power consumption advantage.
So, at that time, the battery life of all smart watches equipped with other wearable chips was generally about a day, and some even failed to last. Samsung adopted the Exynos 9110 full smart watch product, but the battery life was It can easily take three days or more.
Please note that this is only the level of Samsung’s Exynos wearable chip three years ago. Because just recently, Samsung launched a new generation of wearable chip-ExynosW920. And when we compared Exynos W920 with the latest chip solutions of other smart watches currently on the market, we quickly realized that Samsung had "killed" competing products this time.
First of all, in terms of basic process and architecture, the latest wearable hardware platform currently on the market, Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear4100, uses a 12nm process and a quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU, single-channel LPDDR3 memory, and Adreno504 GPU . To be fair, Snapdragon Wear4100 has improved by 5 years compared to the previous Snapdragon Wear2500/3100 (Wear3100 is based on the Snapdragon 400 in 2013, and Wear4100 is based on the Snapdragon 429 in 2018).
However, in comparison, ExynosW920 uses the 5nmEUV process, Cortex-A55CPU, LPDDR4 memory, and the Mali-G68GPU that ARM just released last year. In other words, in terms of architecture and process alone, Exynos W920 is at least two years ahead of its competitors.
But for ExynosW920, it inherently does not have this trouble. On the one hand, it uses a much more advanced semiconductor process and is equipped with a more power-saving memory subsystem; on the other hand, because Exynos W920 continues the CPU design ideas of the previous generation and uses a new architecture CPU with a higher energy efficiency ratio. It can achieve performance close to the opponent's quad-core using only a dual-core design, while significantly reducing power consumption.
In fact, compared with its previous generation products, the CPU performance of Exynos W920 can reach 120% of the previous generation, and the GPU performance has directly increased to 1000% of the previous generation products, which shows the advanced architecture and process of great power.
The Cortex-M55 integrated in ExynosW920 is three generations more advanced than the Apollo4S chip architecture (Cortex-M4) used by OPPO.
Not only that, Samsung even specially designed it in ExynosW920 A co-processor core based on the Cortex-M55 low-power architecture. Its function is to "take over" the computing tasks from the main CPU when the smart watch is in the screen display state.
In this way, smart watches based on Exynos W920 will be able to achieve the same or even higher screen-to-screen computing performance as other devices that use auxiliary chips without the need for built-in auxiliary chips. At the same time, it can also effectively simplify the design and further reduce the power consumption of the product. and cost.
But this is not the end yet. In fact, ExynosW920 is not only extremely advanced in its own "internal strength", it also uses the latest fan-out panel-level packaging (FO-PLP) to package SoC, memory, power management chip, and eMMC flash memory into a whole chip. Compared with the traditional design of dispersedly welding different components to the PCB, this package of ExynosW920 not only achieves shorter wiring and higher overall system performance, but also significantly saves the circuit board area of ??smart wearable devices. For devices such as smart watches where every inch of space is precious, a smaller circuit board means more space can be used to accommodate the battery, thereby further improving the battery life of the device.
Of course, from a consumer perspective, we can fully expect that Exynos W920 will help Samsung achieve amazing low power consumption and long battery life on their latest smart watches. At the same time, its extremely high GPU performance also means that it can drive smart watch display panels with much higher resolution than in the past, thereby effectively improving the display fineness of smart watches and even achieving some special high-resolution displays. Wearable device design—for example, a flexible screen that surrounds the wrist—is obviously not impossible.
But from the perspective of industry observers, what we actually want to know is why Samsung can actively use the latest processes, the latest architecture, and the latest packaging methods to make their What about wearable device chips that other manufacturers can’t do?
RL46 chip parameters
The RL46 chip is a low-power, high-performance 32-bit ARM Cortex-M core microcontroller launched by Renesas Electronics. Its main parameters are as follows:
-CPU frequency: up to 48MHz
-Memory: 64KB flash memory, 8KBSRAM
-Communication interface: SPI, I2C, UART, etc. Various interfaces
-Timers: multiple 16-bit timers and PWM outputs
-ADC: 12-bit ADC, maximum sampling rate 1Msps
-Low power Consumption characteristics: supports multiple power-saving modes, and the standby current is less than 1uA
RL46 chip can be widely used in smart homes, smart wearable devices, industrial automation and other fields. In the past five years, wearable devices have ushered in vigorous development. In addition to specialized wearable device brands, mobile phone brands including Xiaomi, vivo, OPPO and other mobile phone brands have also created their own wearable devices. Now smart watches are It has been given more functions, including motion detection, notification reminders, and listening to music. As smart watches play a more important role in users' lives, higher requirements are put forward for the battery life and performance of smart watches.
After Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon 2100, 3100, 4100/410 wearable platforms, today it brought a new wearable platform and adopted a new naming method. This is the first generation of Snapdragon W5/W5+ wearable platform, this series is designed for the next generation of wearable devices. It has carried out comprehensive technological innovation from the platform level, bringing comprehensive upgrades in performance and experience to subsequent smart wearable devices.
Create long-lasting battery life
The first-generation Snapdragon W5+ wearable platform uses a hybrid architecture, including a 4-nanometer system-on-chip (SoC) and a 22-nanometer highly integrated The always-on (AON) coprocessor. With the advantages of ultra-low power consumption, top performance and high integration, future wearable devices can be thinner, lighter and more compact.
The large and small core design of the first generation Snapdragon W5+ wearable platform can effectively allocate tasks. The large core SoC is developed for WearOS and AOSP operating systems and will undertake functions such as communication, LTE, modem, etc., as well as some The operation of Android applications includes camera and radio frequency processing tasks. The co-processor is based on the FreeRTOS system and integrates more functions, including display, sports and health sensors, audio processing and notification push.
The design of large and small cores can better control power consumption issues. Commonly used functions will be completed through co-processors to avoid additional waste of power consumption. At the same time, the first-generation Snapdragon W5+ wearable platform also incorporates the low-power Bluetooth architecture, which uses a low-power coprocessor to control the Bluetooth 5.3 module, resulting in lower power consumption in connection.
In addition, the first-generation Snapdragon W5+ wearable platform also integrates GPS, WiFi, audio and other modules into low-power islands.
These modules are powered separately. When users use GPS Our GPS module will be powered on when not in use, and will be powered off when not in use to avoid wasting power and minimize power consumption.
On this basis, Qualcomm has also brought exclusive two working mechanisms of deep sleep and hibernation. In deep sleep mode, all Android-related content is stored in RAM, and large cores are powered off. In this operating mode, power consumption can be controlled very well. In addition, the content of the Android system can also be put into sleep mode. In this mode, the overall power consumption will be less than 0.5mA.
According to Qualcomm’s internal test data, the battery life of the first-generation Snapdragon W5+ wearable platform has been increased by 50%. This improvement can be said to be very obvious.
Strong performance brings more comprehensive functional support
The first-generation Snapdragon W5/W5+ wearable platform also brings stronger performance, with the first-generation flagship platform Take the Snapdragon W5+ as an example. Its SoC uses a 1.7GHz quad-core CortexA53 architecture, supports LPDDR4X memory, 1GHz GPU, and supports dual ISP camera design. The co-processor adopts CortexM55 architecture, is equipped with 2.5DGPU, has HiFi5DSP, and also integrates Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi modules.
At the same time, a U55 core for machine learning is also integrated into the platform co-processor to perform sensor algorithm processing tasks. Based on the enhanced hybrid architecture, the smoothness of subsequent smart wearable devices will be improved. Big improvement.
Smart devices based on the first-generation Snapdragon W5+ wearable platform will have smooth video playback capabilities and two-way video calling functions, as well as 3D map navigation, real-time image recognition, and interactive voice assistants. And intelligent terminal control and other aspects will also bring new experiences.
With many new enhanced features, the first-generation Snapdragon W5+ wearable platform reduces power consumption by 50%, improves performance by 2 times, and increases features by 2 times compared with the previous generation platform (Snapdragon 410) , the size is reduced by 30%, providing a broader space for subsequent terminal manufacturers to build equipment.
New platform devices will be officially unveiled in August
Devices based on the first-generation Snapdragon W5/W5+ wearable platform will be unveiled in August, among which OPPO will refresh and launch Smartwatches based on the Snapdragon W5 platform, while Mobvoi will launch the Snapdragon W5+ wearable platform.
Li Kaixin, OPPO Assistant Vice President and President of IoT Business Group, said: "The release of the new Snapdragon W5 wearable platform will elevate smart wearable technology to a new level. OPPO and Qualcomm Technologies have a long-term close cooperation , constantly creating possibilities for product innovation. The OPPOWatch3 series will be released in August. As the first smart watch equipped with the Snapdragon W5 wearable platform, it will win the favor of users with its more outstanding performance. ”
Mobvoi CEO Li Zhifei said: "In the past few years, Mobvoi has cooperated with Qualcomm Technologies to release a series of TicWatch smartwatch products equipped with the Snapdragon wearable platform. Our team has a deep understanding of the differences of the Snapdragon W5+ wearable platform We are excited about these new features and have been working closely with the Qualcomm Technologies team to implement these innovations on our next-generation TicWatch flagship smartwatch. We look forward to launching our latest product this fall, which will also be the first to feature the third-generation TicWatch. Smart watch products of the first generation Snapdragon W5+ wearable platform”
Qualcomm Technologies also released two reference designs created by Compal Computer and Pegatron, demonstrating new platform functions and ecology. The collaboration of partners helps customers accelerate the product development process. The next wearable devices to be launched are still very worth looking forward to.
Smart wearable devices require a GPS positioning module. What are the selection points?
The GPS module required by smart wearable devices must be small in size. In view of the situation of smart wearable devices, the module power consumption value must be as low as possible, and the tracking sensitivity of the module must be high. These aspects are GPS The main requirement of the module.
By the way, let me talk about a wearable GPS module SKG08A with relatively stable performance
Chip: MediaTek MT3339
Small size 9.0*8.5*1.8(mm)
Ultra-low power consumption, and there are three modes of power consumption available:
(1) Normal mode: full power consumption
(2) Healthy low-power mode: 20 %~80% power consumption, shut down the idle part of the CPU, the tracking current is only 5mA, which can extend the battery life 2-3 times
(3) Intelligent low-power mode: 20% power consumption, intermittent Mode
Ultra-high sensitivity: -162dbm
Extremely fast TTFF at low signal levels
Built-in 12 multi-frequency active interference canceller
< p>±10ns high-precision pulse (1pps)Advanced features: AlwaysLocate;AIC;EPO;EASY
QZSS, SBAS (WAAS, EGNOS, MSAS, GAGAN)