Leaked S11 Chip Details Reveal No Major Performance Upgrades for 2025 Apple Watches
The upcoming Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch Ultra 3, and Apple Watch SE 3 will have an updated S11 system in package (SiP), but it may not bring much in the way of processor performance improvements.
Apple accidentally leaked some internal information about the upcoming chip, and it turns out it will have the same T8310 architecture as the S9 and S10 chips in the Series 9 and Series 10 Apple Watch models.
It's not unusual for Apple to use the same architecture across multiple versions of the S-series chips for the Apple Watch. The S6, S7, and S8 chips all had the same core technology.
The S9 and S10 chips use two "Sawtooth" performance cores like the A16 Bionic chip, so while it is older technology, it's still a lot of power for a wrist-worn device. It's a 64-bit dual-core processor with a 4-core Neural Engine, second-generation Ultra Wideband (UWB) support, and 64GB storage space.
Though the underlying technology is the same, Apple could make other tweaks. With the S10, for example, Apple redesigned the chip with a thinner profile so it would take up less space inside the watch.
With the S11 chip set to stay largely the same in the 2025 Apple Watch models, it's likely Apple's upcoming S12 chip for 2026 will use a new microarchitecture with performance improvements.
Though Apple's code only gave us insight into the Ultra 3 and Series 11, there were codenames for future devices as well:
- N227: Apple Watch Series 11
- N228: Apple Watch Series 11 (Cellular)
- N230: Apple Watch Ultra 3
- N237: Apple Watch Series 12
- N238: Apple Watch Series 12 (Cellular)
- N240: Apple Watch Ultra 4
The Apple Watch Ultra 3, Apple Watch Series 11, and Apple Watch SE 3 are expected to debut at Apple's upcoming September event.
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