A-GPS platform targets multi-wireless needs

NemeriX, a provider of A-GPS semiconductor solutions, has announced the release of its fourth generation A-GPS navigation platform, NemeriX NX4.

This modular, scalable, hosted & stand-alone A-GPS navigation solution directly targets the strategic roadmaps of mobile handset vendors. Similar to other NemeriX GPS generations, the company claims that the NX4 is designed to be an industry leader on low power and high sensitivity, provide top tier performance (tracking, TTFF time-to-first-fix), and have the lowest bill-of-materials (BOM).

Commensurate with record investments in the GPS space, large mobile handset vendors (and suppliers) are demanding single-package, GPS-enabled multi-wireless solutions by the third quarter of 2008, followed by total wireless integration shortly thereafter. The NX4 platform provides users with the ability to choose hosted or stand-alone A-GPS architectures within a single chip, as well as migration to 65nm RFCMOS and integrated baseband for multi-wireless applications (BlueTooth, WiFi, and FM).

"Our customers want a high-performance, low-power single-package, GPS-enabled multi-wireless solution no later than the second half of 2008 and a single-die multi-wireless 65nm RFCMOS solution by 2010," states Luc Seraphin, managing director of NemeriX.

"GPS capability is turning out to be the "keystone" of the mobile phone industry. Compared to the 75dBm sensitivity typical of other wireless devices, GPS's 162dBm sensitivity makes it the bottleneck to wireless integration. Coupled with the GSM base-band integration aspect of hosted-GPS architectures, this means that once the new multi-wireless solutions are designed-in, they will be very hard to displace. The barriers to entry will be enormous. GPS is quietly but fundamentally changing the rules of the mobile handset game." commented Eric Achtmann, vice chairman of NemeriX.