GPS World, December 2014

Industry news and developments GPS Galileo GLONASS BUSINESS THE Qualcomm to Acquire SiRF Chipmaker CSR Qualcomm Inc has agreed to buy British CSR for 25 billion to enhance its automotive infotainment and Internet of Things IoT offerings CSR is known to the GPS GNSS industry as the maker of the SiRFstar series of chips which are used in many consumer devices Qualcomm is a leading maker of chips used in smartphones According to Qualcomm the acquisition complements the companys offerings by adding products channels and customers in the important growth categories of Internet of Everything IoE and automotive infotainment This opportunity is aligned with Qualcomms established strategic priorities in these rapidly growing business areas according to a Qualcomm statement The transaction is expected to close by the end of the summer of 2015 Once the transaction is complete the two major U S wireless mobile chip design manufacturers will have GPS GNSS technology firmly embedded within their organizations Broadcom acquired Global Locate in July 2007 CSR acquired SiRF Technology in June 2009 and now CSR has in turn been acquired by Qualcomm Throughout 2008 Broadcom and SiRF were locked in a patent battle that Broadcom eventually won precipitating a decline in SiRFs onetime dominance and sending it into eventual disappearance and acquisition by CSR With this aqcuisition the two companies again compete in the rival Qualcomm and Broadcom camps Samsung Smart Watch Has GPS GLONASS James Bond could use what Samsung Electronics now offers The companys latest smart wearable device the Gear S smart watch has assisted GPS GLONASS as well as 3G connectivity allowing active users to access their smartphone information and make phone calls directly from their wrist Designed with a two inch curved Super AMOLED display and flexible band the Samsung Gear S is equipped with an accelerometer a gyroscope a compass a heart rate monitor and a barometer The interface allows users to read messages and notifications in a single glance with features such as conversation view and condensed font Connected to 3G networks people can receive notifications from social networks calendars and applications even when away from their phones Users can instantly receive incoming messages and reply to SMS using an onscreen keyboard or enhanced S voice functionality The Gear S lets users enjoy seamless communication by freely switching between connections automatically connecting and synchronizing information once it is paired to a smartphone It also provides standalone features such as turn by turn pedestrian navigation provided by HERE and health features and applications such as Nike Running so users can track their runs while leaving their smartphones at home OriginGPS Launches Nano Spider for Wearables Watches The new OriginGPS Nano Spider is a tiny fully integrated GPS receiver designed to support ultra compact applications where size is at a premium such as smart watches wearable devices trackers and digital cameras The 4 x 4 x 21 millimeter Nano Spider is a multi level circuit for surface mounting built to reduce footprint size It continuously tracks all GPS satellites in view and provides real time positioning data in the industry standard NMEA format The complete System in Package SIP includes a low noise amplifier surface acoustic wave filter temperature controlled crystal oscillator and real time clock crystal a power management unit and radio frequency shielding The module offers 1 meter accuracy It achieves a rapid time to first fix of less than 1 second and tracking sensitivity of 163 dBm It can detect changes in context temperature and satellite signals by maintaining and opportunistically updating its internal fine time frequency and ephemeris data for near continuous availability GPS World December 2014 www gpsworld com 12