GPS Leader Delivers Comprehensive Solution to Ease LBS Deployment in Wireless Carrier Networks
SiRF Technology, a supplier of GPS semiconductor and software solutions, today introduced a trio of new location products and technologies that break key barriers to making location awareness an integral part of mainstream mobile devices.
Recognizing the need to provide outstanding location capability across a wide variety of mobile devices, applications and networks, SiRF’s comprehensive new location solutions help wireless carriers reduce the cost and risk of location-enabling their networks while enhancing the user experience for location based services (LBS).
These solutions open the door to a wider variety of location-aware cell phones, smart phones, PDAs and other wireless handheld devices, and enable carriers to meet the rigorous demands of consumer applications.
The new products, to debut next week at the 3GSM World Congress, include a chip-set and an IP platform based on SiRF’s new, third-generation GPS architecture, SiRFstarIII. With its industry leading performance, SiRFstarIII provides flexibility for location enabling a wide range of mobile devices.
Multimode GPS
The new SiRFSoft mobile GPS software architecture, also unveiled today, represents a new approach to multimode GPS-enabled location technology. Geared toward smart phone devices with powerful application processors, SiRFSoft mobile GPS architecture is designed to deliver scalable performance cost-effectively by eliminating the need for a dedicated GPS baseband chip. SiRF today also introduced the SiRFLoc Server platform, incorporating SiRF’s patented SiRFLoc multimode technology. Deliverable through SiRF’s infrastructure partners, in a carrier-class network location server, the platform supports either standards-based control plane or IP-based user plane operation.
Consumers’ performance expectations in the wireless location market have become much more rigorous. In order to satisfy consumer expectations, response time for a location application has to be fast, and work in varied wireless environment, under difficult signal conditions – indoors and out – even if the network connection is lost altogether. SiRFStarIII and SiRFSoft both bring unique benefits to mobile devices and are designed to deliver fast times to first fix and high-sensitivity acquisition to make real-time navigation practical where conventional GPS often fails.
Processor efficient
SiRFSoft GPS architecture is optimized for efficient usage of application processor engines that are driving many of today’s smart phone and wireless connected PDAs. Portable to the market leading platforms such as Intel XScaleTM and OMAPI, its performance is scalable to the available throughput of these devices.