GPS World, December 2017

For developing the first dual frequency L1 L5 E1 E5 GNSS chip for smartphones ushering in a new era of highprecision DECEMBER 2017 WWW GPSWORLD COM GPS WORLD 43 GNSS in mass market products T hank you to GPS World and the sponsors and supporters of this event from Charlie Abr aham Jav i e r de Sa l as my s e l f and the Broadcom marketing and engineering teams for this award We are very honored that our efforts to provide the best possible GNSS to as many people as possible have been recognized in this way A few years back we had completed receiver support for a fifth GNSS L1 system and asked ourselves Whats next At that time technology nodes were getting to a point where a single chip L1 L5 E1 E5 receiver could be contemplated and the Galileo launch schedule was picking up speed An old outlandish idea suddenly didnt seem as outlandish any more Many or most of you in this room are experts in the business of perfection the business of perfecting and pushing performance boundaries for GNSS As designers of mass market devices we have instead become experts in the art of compromise If we can achieve good performance at 10mA then how about 5mA If we can implement a 16 bit data path with 01dB losses how few bits can we get away with for 02dB losses How can we add support for new GNSS systems without growing RF digital hardware or software It is this extreme frugality that now has enabled us to put a complete single chip L1 L5 system in the hands of phone and wearables manufacturers with smaller size and lower power consumption than the previous L1 only generations Competition in our market is fierce but we are excited about this opportunity to work together with our competitors to promote this new level of precision to our common customers We have taken initiative in this area by forming the Dual Frequency Alliance There is an investment that has to be made in phones with antenna and filtering support for the new band Only when these investments are made will we be able to bring this new performance level to hundreds of millions of people Only then will we start seeing new applications built on high precision applications that havent even been envisioned yet Once those applications are available there will be pressure to expand L1 L5 technology from flagship phones to truly mass market phones L5 support enables high accuracy GNSS but it does not guarantee it To go from multi meter precision to submeter precision requires advanced software GNSS chip manufacturers can provide a good starting point but once GNSS measurements are made available GNSS students and experts alike can supply clever applications professional software tools and infrastructure to further advance GNSS technology Our job is to work together to push the L1 L5 technology into phones to provide a new platform for GNSS development In summary we would like to work as an industry to make L1 L5 E1 E5 the new standard for GNSS performance and to make these measurements available in phones for as many engineers as possible to either monetize their existing IP or develop entirely new IP PRODUCTS LEADERSHIP AWARD ADVANCED CAPABILITY DEVELOPERS Charles Abraham and Andreas Warloe with Javier de Salas not shown Vice President of Engineering Senior Director of Engineering and Director of Software Engineering respectively Broadcom Ellen Hall left above CEO of Spirent Federal Systems introduced and conferred the award Remarks below given by Andreas Warloe