Cambridge, UK — CSR has launched BlueCore BC7830, which claims to be the smallest GPS combination device designed for mobile handsets. Measuring a mere 11mm² in silicon size, the BC7830 includes GPS, Bluetooth v2.1+EDR, FM transmit and receive technologies and support for Bluetooth low energy all on a single chip.
This level of integration is made possible by the company's 'Smart Integration' strategy, where the chip is specifically architected to support multiple radio technologies. According to the company, due to the analogue circuitry, shrinking the size of radio chips on a CMOS process needs to go beyond the benefits that Moore's law can provide and the only way to achieve radical size reduction, and therefore cost reduction, is to have deep innovation at an architectural level.
CSR's Connectivity Centre strategy exploits the high attach rates of its Bluetooth technology, integrating additional value added wireless technologies into its subsystem. This technique allows different wireless technologies to share resources and be aware of what the other on-chip elements are doing to ensure the best possible coexistence between the radios.
BlueCore BC7830's design enables handset designers to add GPS functionality to their products for less than a dollar. This figure includes incremental silicon cost as well as the external GPS components required (GPS antenna, associated filtering and clocking components).
BlueCore BC7830 will enable GPS to be added to many mid-range feature phone products where previously the cost was prohibitive. Such low cost, mass market GPS will, in turn, enable a host of Location Based Services (LBS), especially those based on the Push to Fix usage model. For example, geotagging photos/movie clips or using Google Maps whilst lost are highly desirable GPS feature phone applications. LBS are predicted by ABI Research to generate huge revenue streams for operators, with a global annual revenue total forecast to reach $13.3 billion by 2013.
BlueCore BC7830 also fully supports the forthcoming Bluetooth low energy standard. Because of the small incremental impact in terms of silicon area, and negligible cost of adding Bluetooth low energy to existing Bluetooth chips, the technology is expected to have the fastest uptake of any wireless technology to date. Bluetooth low energy was successfully demonstrated in a handset by CSR in July last year, and according to ABI Research the technology is predicted to ship over 428 million devices by 2010.
For further information visit www.csr.com.
