Beacon W5+ SoM – A tiny (27x15mm) Qualcomm Snapdragon W5+ System-on-Module for wearables

Beacon EmbeddedWorks’ W5+ SoM is an ultra-compact (27×15 mm) system-on-module powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon W5+ platform for wearables with a quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, a co-processor with an Arm Cortex-M55 core and an Ethos U55 ML accelerator, and WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity.

Beacon W5+ specifications:

• Platform – Snapragon W5+
  • SW5100P-0 SoC
    • CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.7 GHz
    • GPU – Qualcomm Adreno A702 @ up to 1,010 MHz with OpenGL ES 3.1, Vulkan 1.0, OpenCL 2.0 API support
    • DSP – Dual Qualcomm Hexagon DSP V66K
    • ISP – Dual ISP
    • VPU
      • 1080p30 Video Decode HVEC, H.264, VP9
      • 1080p30 Video Encode HVEC, H.264
    • System Memory (PoP)  – Up to 2GB 16-bit LPDDR4X
    • Storage (PoP) – Up to 32GB eMMC flash
    • Process – 4nm
  • AON QCC5100 Co-processor
    • Cortex-M55 always-on core @ 250MHz
    • AI accelerator – Arm Ethos-U55 NPU @ 300 MHz
    • Audio DSP – HiFi5 DSP
    • Process – 22nm
  • Wireless connectivity
    • Dual-band 802.11n 1×1 WiFi 4
    • Bluetooth 5.3 with BLE support
• Memory (for QCC5100) – Quad SPI NOR flash
• Storage (for QCC5100) –  PSRAM
• 2x high-density board-to-board connectors
  • Display – 4-lane MIPI DSI up to 1080p60
  • Camera – Up to 2x MIPI CSI-2 (up to 4 lanes w/PHY) up to 16MP
  • Audio
    • SWR, Quad I2S, I2S, PCM
    • Digital microphone (PDM) input
  • USB – 1x USB 2.0
  • I/O
    • At least 3x UART interfaces up to 4Mbps
      At least 2x I2C interfaces
    • At least 3x SPI interfaces operating as either master or slave
  • Debug – JTAG
• Misc – IP antenna connector
• Dimensions – 27 x 15mm
• Compliance – RoHS and Reach

Beacon EmbeddedWorks says the W5+ SoM is suitable for a range of embedded electronic devices, such as wearables and other space-constrained applications. There’s limited information about software, although the company mentions “board support package (BSP) options with versions of Linux, Android, and real-time operating systems”.

However, from the original announcement of the Snapradragon W5/W5+ platform and information on the aforementioned TurboX W5+ development kit page, we know Android runs on the SW5100P-0 application SoC and FreeRTOS on the QCC5100 AI/ML co-processor.

There’s no information about an evaluation board/reference design for the Beacon W5+ SoM just yet. That may be because the module is shown as “Coming Soon!” on the product page where you’ll find a few more details, including a product brief.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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