Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Broadcom Intros 40nm Multi-Constellation GNSS Solution

Broadcom introduced a new location architecture for smartphones that promises 10x acquisition performance improvement and faster and more accurate position computation than existing smartphone GPS solutions.


Broadcom's location architecture features a new 40nm CMOS Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) chip that significantly reduces time-to-first-fix (TTFF) for outdoor positioning and also uses data from inertial sensors, Wi-Fi access points (including those based on recently announced 5G WiFi) and future technologies such as Bluetooth beacons to enable indoor positioning. In addition, the platform offers integration with NFC, which opens the door for smarter, more secure mobile payments where location data provides additional security.


The Broadcom BCM4752 GNSS chip simultaneously collects data from four satellite constellations (GPS, GLONASS, QZSS and SBAS) and uses the best received signals to calculate location. It uses 50 percent less power than previous generations and 44% less board space.
http://www.broadcom.com