CSR plc has debuted the SiRFstarV 5e, a GNSS engine optimized to enable highly accurate location positioning for devices including mobile phones, cameras, and health and fitness products. By supporting fully concurrent GLONASS, GPS, QZSS, and SBAS from ROM, the highest accuracy and fastest time-to-first-fix (TTFF) are ensured.
Wireless solutions specialist Telit Communications plc will be using the solution for its Jupiter SE868-V2 module, which was launched at CTIA Wireless 2013 in Las Vegas. The 11 x 11 millimeter QFN packaged receiver module integrates 5e, TCXO, SAW, and RTC oscillator into a small convenient package, accelerating time-to-market and reducing product development risks. CSR believes its advanced power saving modes make it extremely battery-power friendly and ideal for wearable and personal navigation applications.
“The Jupiter SE868-V2 excels in all positioning tasks and foremost in applications requiring high reliability navigation,” says Felix Marchal, Chief Product Officer at Telit Wireless Solutions. “By using CSR’s SiRFstarV 5e solution, we have been able to create a quick and convenient upgrade path for our Jupiter JF2 GPS module customers to the latest and most robust multi-constellation support available in the market.”
SiRFstarV 5e offers a range of features to increase accuracy, improve time to first fix and preserve battery power to enable a better user experience. These include:
InstantFix Extended Ephemeris (EE) — Devices without wireless connectivity, such as cameras, are able to overcome slow TTFF, a common annoyance for the end user. 5e is capable of autonomously forward predicting EE for three days locally, and for connected devices the solution supports server based EE for up to 31 day for GPS and up to 14 day GLONASS EE
Direct to battery capability — The GNSS chip can connect directly to a Lithium battery supply, enabling system cost reduction and increased power efficiency. This is implemented by an integrated switched PMU, reducing system level power and eBOM costs
Design flexibility for optimal solution cost — With clear attention to solution implementation, 5e is designed for small size and low power. For example, UART and SPI Flash drive levels are drivable from 1.8v to 3.3v, eliminating the need for level shifters and increasing implementation flexibility
Intelligent design — The 5e is designed to be optimised for low power battery operated devices. For instance, in asset tracking applications, the 5e engine will intelligently decide how long to try to acquire satellite signal based around its environment, saving a significant amount of battery power
“The SiRFstarV 5e device allows our customers to select a high performance solution that will deliver end users a seamless navigation and location experience whatever the application,” says Dave Huntingford, Director of Location at CSR. “The fact that Telit has already seen the potential of SiRFstarV 5e and selected it for its Jupiter SE868-V2 module reflects the location accuracy benefits afforded by the 5e.”
SiRFstarV 5e is offered in a size optimal 0.4-mm pitch Wafer Level Chip Scale Package (WLCSP) and a 0.5-mm pitch Ball Grid Array (BGA) for low cost PCB applications.
CSR plc has introduced the SiRFstarV 5t tracker, the first SiRFstarV architecture product optimized to deliver continuous, highly accurate location awareness to the latest generation of smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. The quad-GNSS SiRFstarV 5t tracker is the first SiRFstarV device to offer exclusive CSR adaptive continuous tracking power management technology, which CSR said offers significant power savings for extended battery life, and also includes MEMS inputs, LTE immunity, enhanced active jammer removal and other SiRFstarV features.
The SiRFstarV 5t is in use by LG Electronics for its first quad-core smartphone, the LG Optimus 4X HD, which takes advantage of the device’s GLONASS support and high sensitivity, CSR said.
“With GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and Compass system capabilities, our new power-saving technology and the other SiRFstarV features, the SiRFstarV 5t tracker is perfect for mobile device OEMs looking to create new products that take location and navigation to the next level for an enhanced user experience,” said Dave Huntingford, director of location product line marketing at CSR. “We believe the SiRFstarV 5t again demonstrates CSR leadership in providing best-in-class location solutions that meet or exceed the demanding requirements of smartphone OEMs and operators.”
Optimized for size- and power-constrained applications, the SiRFstarV 5t boasts a number of enhanced SiRFstarV architectural features — from quad-GNSS support and MEMS-aiding, to improved sensitivity and interference rejection to small size and low BOM count — that result in location performance and power consumption improvements, reduced package size, easier integration and lower-cost implementation, CSR said. The SiRFstarV 5t supports A-GPS and A-GLONASS in MSA and MSB modes, and has been tested for all major carrier requirements, including SUPL1.0 and SUPL2.0, and offers improved 3GPP acquisition and tracking margins. SiRFInstantFix extended ephemeris technology for GPS and GLONASS is also supported.
The SiRFstarV 5t supports all four major GNSS. With its 24 additional satellites, GLONASS provides a valuable augmentation to GPS and enables the SiRFstarV 5t to boost location performance, especially in urban canyons, for the most demanding applications by increasing service availability, reducing observation time and making solutions more precise. The SiRFstarV 5t additionally supports Galileo and Compass systems, when they become available, with a software upgrade for even greater performance and ensured compliance to existing and future requirements of the world’s major GNSS systems.
The SiRFstarV 5t introduces CSR’s exclusive TricklePowerII technology, an improved intelligent power management system that can deliver significant power savings compared to other location solutions for continuous 1-Hz navigation. TricklePowerII continually measures the strength of the available satellite signals and dynamically adjusts the chip’s power consumption to just the right amount to achieve optimal location performance without wasting power. With many new mobile devices including MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) sensors, the SiRFstarV 5t is able to utilize data from these sensors to improve navigation accuracy and reduce power.
The SiRFstarV 5t has been designed from the ground up to provide superior immunity to interference from LTE (long-term evolution) radio signals, giving mobile device manufacturers confidence in its ability to coexist in their designs with LTE, CSR said. Coexistence of LTE with GPS, GLONASS, and other GNSS signals is critical for continuous location awareness and use of location-based services, and CSR has implemented a number of mechanisms to boost immunity to LTE interference in the SiRFstarV 5t.
The SiRFstarV 5t also includes improved active jammer removal, a unique CSR technology first introduced with the SiRFstarIV architecture, which improves location performance by continually tracking and eliminating radio interference from up to eight sources, a critical requirement when GNSS devices are in close proximity to other electrically noisy devices like those found in a mobile handset.
The complete CSR solution includes SiRFNav software running on the host CPU to calculate the precise position, velocity and time and provide complete control of GNSS operation, including navigation, assistance and nav-aiding. The solution requires minimal OS-dependent host system loading during tracking, simplifying system integration, and supports a wide variety of CPUs and operating systems.