SiRF Technology Holdings this week plans to unveil a global positioning system-enabled system-on-a-chip (SoC) it said will make automotive navigation and telematics systems more affordable for consumers.
The product, dubbed SiRFstarIIA, integrates the company’s GPS engine with a 32-bit asynchronous response mode CPU and peripheral interface circuitry. It can be used as a central component for a variety of telematics applications, including emergency, security and concierge services and low-cost navigation systems.
As cutting-edge technologies drive prices down for navigation systems and other applications, consumers in Europe and the United States are beginning to embrace them, according to Kanwar Chadha, SiRF’s founder and vice president of technology.
“People associate the auto market with high-end navigational systems, but today that market has multiple facets,” said Chadha. “It started in Europe, and now the U.S. market has started to take off.”
GPS systems communicate with a constellation of 24 orbiting satellites to give precise, real-time location information. Late last year, SiRF announced a deal that will put its chipsets in 3 million General Motors cars as part of the automaker’s OnStar System next year. Another agreement, with Blaupunkt, will use SiRF chipsets in 120,000 in-vehicle navigation systems the car stereo maker plans to put in cars in the next year.
But Chadha said he’s seeing tremendous demand for portable navigation systems that embed GPS technology directly on a handheld device.
SiRF will announce a deal this week to put another chipset in a portable navigator and MP3 player designed to be mounted on a car’s dashboard. The Mio 136, which recently launched in the United States, provides spoken and visual turn-by-turn directions to any address in its database of North American and Hawaiian locations.
“That market was almost zero about two years ago, but today it is the fastest-growing market (for SiRF),” Chadha said of portable navigation systems. “The reason is the price point. These systems are priced at $400 to $800, and you can take it from car to car. That market has grown from close to zero to more than 2 million units last year.”
