Google reportedly is developing a Tensor chip for the Pixel Watch

We know that starting with next year’s Pixel 10 series, the Tensor G5 SoC powering the phones will no longer be built on an Samsung Exynos platform. Instead, the chipset will be designed from the ground up by Google which will allow the company to build new innovations and capabilities for Pixel handsets right into the Tensor application processor (AP). And Google is also saying goodbye to Samsung Foundry, the company that manufactured the first four Tensor chipsets.

Next year, Pixel 10 users might notice an improvement in the performance and possibly even the battery life of the Pixel 10 units compared with this year’s models. That’s because starting in 2025, the Tensor G5 AP will be built by the world’s leading foundry, TSMC, using its second-generation 3nm process node (N3E). This could quickly help turn what has been a weakness for the Pixel series into an advantage.

And now there is talk of Google developing a custom SoC for the Pixel Watch which could be ready in a couple of years. The first Pixel Watch, released in October 2022, was powered by the Samsung Exynos 9110 as Google borrowed the processor strategy used on the Pixel smartphones for the first Pixel Watch. But that strategy shifted in 2023 and 2024 as the Pixel Watch 2 and Pixel Watch 3 both contain  Snapdragon chipsets designed by Qualcomm. This change gave Pixel Watch users a big improvement in battery life starting with 2023’s Pixel Watch 2.

Android Authority was able to read documents leaked from Google’s chip division stating that the customized chip for the Pixel Watch, with the codename “NPT,” will be equipped with older CPU cores taking the focus off of cutting-edge performance and concentrating on efficiency instead. This seems to be the trend for the processors being used these days on wearable devices like smartwatches. The custom Tensor NPT chip for the Pixel Watch could debut in 2026 on the Pixel Watch 5.

The configuration of the chip is rumored to include one Arm Cortex-A78 CPU performance core along with two Arm Cortex-A55 CPU efficiency cores. The latter core goes back to 2017. The Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 that powered last year’s Pixel Watch 2 used Cortex-A53 cores which date back even longer, back to 2012. The chip was produced on a 4nm node. Another currently employed chipset, Samsung’s Exynos W1000 SoC, is found inside the Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra. This chipset uses a similar configuration made up of one Cortex-A78 CPU performance core and four Arm Cortex-A55 CPU efficiency cores.