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Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon chipset for wearables is said to be currently under development. The new SoC will reportedly help boost the performance of wearable devices that will feature the next generation of the Wear OS. The chipmaker usually repurposes its dated smartphone SoCs for wearables by making a few changes to it. But this time, the company is reportedly building a chipset for wearables from scratch. The chip is said to have been codenamed Aspen, and could have a model number SW6100. Although the company is yet to confirm the details, the chip is expected to be part of Wear OS smartwatches in 2026.
New Qualcomm Snapdragon Chip For Wearables Specifications (expected)
According to a report by Android Authority, Qualcomm is currently working on the development of a new Snapdragon SoC, built specifically for wearable devices. The chip is said to “supercharge” the performance of wearables that are going to run on the next generation Wear OS. The report added that the rumoured chip has been codenamed Aspen.
Moreover, the report also hinted at the CPU configuration of the rumoured SoC. The new Qualcomm Snapdragon wearables chipset could feature a single-core Arm Cortex-A78 and a four-core Arm Cortex-A55 CPUs, paired with an LPDDR5X RAM controller, built on a Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) process node. According to Arm’s website, the Cortex-A78 is a high-end performance CPU that also offers efficiency. The rumoured Qualcomm SoC is reportedly going to power Wear OS smartwatches in 2026.
The report suggests that this is a “huge upgrade” over its previous generations as Qualcomm previously used the Arm Cortex-A53 CPU cluster. Although the report does not mention which TSMC process node Qualcomm is using, it claimed that the process node should improve the chipset’s efficiency. Additionally, the LPDDR5X RAM controller is said to provide a “small but non-negligible” battery life upgrade. It could reportedly also get a QCC6100 coprocessor.
Qualcomm is reportedly building the SoC from scratch. This is important because previously companies have been repurposing their smartphone chipsets with few changes to optimise them for smartwatches and other wearable devices. Additionally, the report added that the Qualcomm and Google partnership for launching RISC-V wear chips might be facing uncertainty. The two tech giants might not bring the said chips to the market “anytime soon, if ever.”
In recent news, Qualcomm has announced that it is going to host its Snapdragon XR Day in India on July 21 in New Delhi. During the event, the chipmaker will showcase the performance of its chips’ in powering augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) headsets and smartglasses. Soon after, the company will also hold its Snapdragon Auto Day on July 30, where the US-based company will demonstrate the performance of SoCs in the in-vehicle systems market.
