The predicted ramping up of location based services depends on the proliferation of GPS enablement – particularly mobile handsets such as cell phones and PDAs. This proliferation process will receive a boost from the rollout of mobile handset platforms based on CellGuide’s new CGX5900 ultra-miniature GPS co-processor designed specifically for mass-market mobile devices.

Cost Breakthrough

The ACLYS GPS receiver chip has a claimed 70% cost reduction compared to conventional dedicated GPS receiver chip products. Cost reduction comes from the lack of duplication of computing power of the host CPU and reduced signal processing requirements from unique algorithms.

Minimal Footprint

Size is always important with mobile handsets and the breathtakingly small 5x5x0.9 mm size of the ACLYS GPS receiver chip will be greatly appreciated by mobile device manufacturers.

Minimal Power Consumption

The ACLYS chip is not a dedicated GPS chip and achieves impressively low power consumption in part from the outsourcing of the intensive GPS processing requirements to the host processor of the mobile device. Power consumption is 5 mW while tracking and 20µW in sleep mode.

GPS Performance

CellGuide quote a -160 dBm sensitivity which almost exactly matches that quoted for the SiRF StarIII market leading GPS receiver chip As downloading assistance data over a cellular network (A-GPS) can provide faster cold starts than autonomous GPS, the ACLYS is capable of both. Although, as it uses long-term ephemeris technology storing satellite position data faster startups are possible even when no cellular network is available. Positioning accuracy is 3m.

Signal Processing Technology

CellGuide attribute their coprocessor’s performance to their unique, patented signal processing algorithms. The ACLYS chip tracks satellites in view using a sky snapshot in only a fraction of a second. The quick snapshot technique is made possible by the reduced number of calculations required for a satellite fix. The reduced number of calculations lowers power requirements and size requirements (silicon circuits for calculations). Naturally processing and memory requirements of the host processor are also reduced. Time to first Fix (TTFF) is shorter as a result of the sky snapshot approach and faster signal processing.

Platform Compatibility

CellGuide have designed the ACLYS’s applications processor-based software to run on Windows Mobile and Windows CE platforms. The company has previous experience integrating its chips with processors from Samsung, NEC, TI and others.

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