Epson has announced its development of an ultra-sensitive, ultra-compact global positioning system (GPS) module (S4E19863 series) to meet high demand from manufacturers of mobile phones and other handsets with GPS functionality. A telling feature aligning the module with the stated applications is the small form factor which Epson claim is the world’s smallest at 7mm x 6mm x 1.28mm.

As is their practice, Epson have developed the new GPS module from their own knowledgebase of GPS baseband processors and A-GPS software. Epson state that the new GPS module has a broad detection range capable of obtaining satellite fixes even for weak indoor GPS signals.

The module supports the three 3GPP-compliant positioning modes - MS(Mobile Station)-Based, MS-Assisted and Autonomous. This means that while the module can take advantage of assisted GPS (A-GPS) modes it has the onboard computing power to also autonomously establish its location through multiple GPS satellite fixes.
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