Business Weekly

 CSR – which is famed for developing the world’s first single-chip Bluetooth solution, a feat that had previously been described as impossible – recently announced a low cost GPS module for mobile devices, developed in partnership with electronics giant, Samsung. But the new chip is just the start for the Cambridge wireless wizards.

Business Weekly can reveal that CSR will shortly be unveiling new technology that delivers both Bluetooth and GPS on the same tiny chip.

According to ABI Research, the market for GPS-enabled handsets alone is set to generate $50bn in revenues this year, with that figure set to rise to $100bn by 2012.

The source of the huge jump in value in the market, according to a CSR spokesperson, will be the use of the technology in mobile handsets.

“You will hear a lot about the technology over the coming weeks, especially at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, but CSR will be announcing a new Bluecore product, featuring both Bluetooth and GPS functionality on one low power chip during the year,” he said.

“CSR have overcome the previous hurdles – cost, power and performance – which were preventing major manufacturers from including the technology in mobile phones.”

CSR’s GPS capability comes from two acquisitions it made early last year, Cambridge Positioning Systems and NordNav, with a view to gaining the software capabilities essential to include the emerging technology on its chipsets. The GPS module developed with Samsung is a vindication of the strategy.

“Our software architecture already allows the lowest cost design for embedding GPS in high volume applications and we’ve seen strong interest from tier one mobile handset and consumer electronics companies,” said VP of CSR’s location based services unit, Dr Stuart Strickland.

“By partnering with Samsung, we are now able to completely eliminate a complex, risk-laden, and time-consuming step in the product design and integration process, thus making this lower cost alternative available to a much broader range of customers.”

The company said that its software approach eliminates the need for a dedicated GPS baseband, reducing the cost of the module to less than half that its competitors are able to offer, and also offering manufacturers a low cost route to take advantage of this high growth market.

It estimates that it will be able to provide manufacturers with a solution combining GPS with Bluetooth functionality for less than $1 over the current BOM for a Bluetooth-only chip.

CSR has been striving to add more functionality to its chips, looking to put more features onto one without heaping on too much cost to the BOM.

“With a combined GPS and EGPS software for handsets, CSR will be able to offer the most competitive, complete and technically advanced mobile GPS solution available to mobile handset, PND, and other portable device makers and operators,” the company said in a statement.

While its newly announced chip will provide a lower cost alternative for manufacturers of GPS enabled PNDs (personal navigation devices) and media players, the market is heading for the real boom to come from the inclusion of the capability into a mobile.

“At $5-$10, current GPS solutions are too expensive and just not practical for mainstream cellphone applications,” said Matthew Phillips, VP of CSR’s Mobile Handset Connectivity strategic business unit.

“There are also performance restrictions in terms of both handset and network that have meant that the technology is not appropriate for the mobile platform. The two acquisitions mean that CSR has removed the barriers for mobile handset makers and operators to provide location based services for the mass market.”
 

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