Users Will Experience Dramatic Improvement in Time to First Fix at No Additional Cost
May 18, 2004 - Atmel® Corporation and u-blox announced today that the ANTARIS GPS technology, jointly developed by Atmel and u-blox, now features an innovative 'aiding' functionality, which makes time to first fix within four seconds a reality. Aiding is just one of several features in the ANTARIS receivers which provide accurate, reliable and robust navigation anywhere and anytime.The ANTARIS-based GPS receivers provide an aiding solution for applications requiring instant position fixes, for example the E911/E112 emergency caller localization in mobile phones, location-based services without waiting time, and un-tethered asset tracking devices. Aiding information, supplied from an external source, for example a base station, reduces the time to first accurate fix to just four seconds. The aiding parameters provide ephemeris, almanac, rough initial position, clock drift and time, satellite status and, if available, a precise time synchronization signal. With this information, the GPS receiver has immediate knowledge of the satellites to search and track.
The ANTARIS technology jointly developed by Atmel and u-blox excel in robust performance in any static and dynamic environment, particularly in the most challenging metropolitan areas. It provides -150 dBm sensitivity without compromising navigation accuracy, advanced WAAS/EGNOS support, excellent acquisition performance such as 34 s cold start, excellent multipath suppression, 4 Hz update rate, low power consumption and enables system solutions with minimum bill-of-material costs.
The aiding feature is available in the u-blox ANTARIS GPS receiver macro components TIM-LP, TIM-LF and TIM-LC as well as on the ANTARIS GPS chipset available from Atmel without additional cost.
Samples of the GPS chip set (receiver IC ATR0600 in QFN28 package measuring only 5x5mm; baseband IC ATR0620 in a 9x9mm 100-pin BGA package; and LNA IC ATR0610 in a very small 1.6x2.0mm PLLP6 package) are available now. Various support packages comprising extensive documentation and a highly sophisticated low-power reference design are also available.
Atmel's GPS ICs ATR0600, ATR0620 and ATR0610 product information may be retrieved at:
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/devices.asp?family_id=665
About u-blox
u-blox is a company operating internationally with headquarters in Switzerland with subsidiaries in Germany, UK, USA and Hong Kong. Since its foundation in 1997, u-blox develops and markets leading Global Positioning System (GPS) chip sets and GPS receiver products.
