Ahead of its Galaxy Unpacked event, Samsung has announced the Exynos W920, its newest and most powerful wearable chip. The W920 will power the company’s upcoming smartwatch and will be a generational leap over previous processors from both Samsung and Qualcomm.
The W920 is the first wearable chip to be built on a 5nm extreme ultra-violet (EUV) process, and it offers upgrades in performance and battery life over previous chips, according to Samsung. With a pair of ARM Cortex-A55 cores and an Arm Mali G68 GPU, Samsung says this chip will improve CPU performance by 20% compared to its immediate predecessor, with a graphic performance that is 10 times better. This means it’ll launch apps faster, and interacting with UI elements will be smoother and more natural.
Samsung also notes that this chip will allow wearables to last longer. By adding a dedicated low-power display processor, the wearable will be able to minimize power consumption when users engage the Always On Display to catch up with notifications or even checking the time. Samsung didn’t say just how much longer we can expect this to keep a device powered on compared to previous iterations, but it won’t be long till we find out.
Other than LTE and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) L1 support, this new chip also is built for Google and Samsung’s unified wearable platform, and it gels with the overall goal of providing a smooth and modern wearables experience. Confirming earlier rumors, Samsung also confirmed that this chip is going to first ship on the Galaxy Watch 4.
“Wearables like smartwatches are no longer just a cool gadget to have. They’re now a growing part of our lifestyles to keep you fit, safe and alert,” Harry Cho, vice president of System LSI marketing at Samsung Electronics wrote in a post announcing the chip. “With the Exynos W920, future wearables will be able to run applications with visually appealing user interfaces and more responsive user experiences while keeping you connected on the go with fast LTE.”
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic are expected to be announced tomorrow at Unpacked alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy Z Flip 3 5G, and Galaxy Buds 2.
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