CTIA: Global Locate intros GP-assisted wireless

By John Walko
iApplianceWeb
(03/21/03, 11:12:05 PM EDT)

NEW ORLEANS, LA - Wireless chip specialist Global Locate Inc., came to the CTIA here with a novel Assisted-GPS chip set featuring 20,000 hardware correlators on a fully-integrated RF device with a time-to-first fix of just 250 milliseconds.

The company says the device, targeted at mobile wireless equipment, can also be easily adapted for more challenging indoor requirements.

The Global Locate A-GPS Chip Set includes the GL-20000 GPS baseband processor IC and a low noise integrated front-end IC, dubbed the GL-LN22. The part complements the existingfunctions on any wireless device, providing position fixes on demand by remaining in a near-zero power state until it is activated by the CPU to perform GPS signal requirements.

The device can acquire satellites with signal intensity as low as -158 dBm. For optimal performance, it performs server-aided starts using Global Locate's Assisted-GPS aiding information, which is delivered over a data link. The GL-20000 A-GPS can also operate without server aiding, and also provides multiple mode operation, either MS-Assisted, with position calculation at server, or MS-Based, with position calculated at terminal.

The compnay's original GL-16000 A-GPS Chip Set, an indoor global positioning system, was introduced in 2001. Fujitsu co-developed the ASIC technology incorporated into the part.

The new chip set supports a full range of serial interfaces, including SPI, UART and I2C, along with 8-bit parallel. The two devices are also available separately.

For more information about the issues, products and technologies in this story, go to flashing icon in the upper left column on the home page or go to the  iAppliance Web Views  page and call up the associatively-linked XML/Java Web map of the iApplianceWeb site and search for product information since the beginning of 2002.

For technical article coverage, go to EETimes In Focus maps on the same Web page and browse or quickly search for all articles on a particular topic since the beginning of 1998.

These Web Maps can be browsed by date, by category, by title, or by keyword, with results displayed instantly either as a list of possible hits or with the specific Web page.