Product category: Communications ICs (Wireless)
News Release from: Cambridge Silicon Radio | Subject: CSR GPS software
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 22 January 2008
Collaboration slashes GPS costs
CSR's software approach eliminates the need for a dedicated GPS baseband, reducing the cost of the module to less than half of what competitors are able to offer
CSR has halved the cost of embedded GPS solutions through a collaboration with Samsung Electro-Mechanics company. The resulting products are based on CSR's GPS software and Samsung's module hardware. They bring location-based services to mobile phones, media players and personal navigation devices, while taking the guesswork out of GPS RF design and allowing OEMs an exceptionally short route to market.
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 22 January 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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According to ABI Research, the market for GPS enabled handsets alone is set to generate US $50bn in revenues in 2008, with that figure set to rise to US $100bn by 2012.
CSR's software approach eliminates the need for a dedicated GPS baseband, this reduces the cost of the module to less than half of what competitors are able to offer and offers manufacturers a low cost route to take advantage of this high growth market.
The 9.8 x 9.8 x 2.15mm Samsung module is based on the SiGe Semiconductor SE4120S GPS RF IC and is a complete GPS RF subsystem, including voltage regulation, RTC and TCXO, SAW filter and LNA.
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When combined with a typical applications processor, the system achieves tracking sensitivity of -159dBm and has a cold start acquisition time of under 40s.
Dr Stuart Strickland, Vice President of CSR's Location Based Services Business Unit, said, 'Our software architecture already allows the lowest cost design for embedding GPS in high-volume applications and we've seen strong interest from tier one mobile handset and consumer electronics companies'.
'By partnering with Samsung, we are now able to completely eliminate a complex, risk-laden and time-consuming step in the product design and integration process, thus making this lower cost alternative available to a much broader range of customers'.
Sakwan Hong, Vice President of Samsung, added, 'With the market for location based services set to boom in 2008, it is crucial that our customers are able to keep apace with the demand'.
'Samsung and CSR's software GPS solution meets customer performance expectations at a substantially lower cost, so it was a natural progression to partner on this GPS module'.
CSR will be demonstrating its software-based GPS technologies at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2008.
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