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By Editorial Staff
Imagine
being able to find your way, instantly, anywhere in the world, including
walking in the wilderness or an unfamiliar city, driving in a car
or navigating a boat. Or think of how wonderful it would be to locate
a lost child in a crowded amusement park, a car parked somewhere
in a multi-acre parking lot or a cellular phone caller in distress.
SiRF Technology, Inc. is the world leader in creating technologies
that confer “location awareness” or “location
intelligence” to a wide range of consumer products. SiRF’s
location-awareness solutions are based on the Global Positioning
System (GPS), the same technology used to guide everything from
the space shuttle to car navigation systems to handheld devices
used by backpackers. Created by the U.S. military, GPS uses more
than 24 satellites in orbit around the earth to provide always-on
location information free of charge to any GPS receiver, anywhere
in the world.
SiRF capitalizes on its architectural innovations, system design
and silicon expertise, RF capabilities and state of the art semiconductor
manufacturing technology to make GPS capabilities accurate, affordable,
power efficient and compact enough to be used in consumer applications.
SiRF’s extensive patent and intellectual property portfolio
improves on conventional GPS by providing location awareness where
other approaches cannot, including under dense foliage, in steep
ravines, in “urban canyons” and even in some indoor
environments. In the constant tension between lost and found, SiRF’s
GPS solutions tip the odds in favor of being found.
SiRF Technology, Inc. has recently announced that its SiRFstarIIe/LP
global positioning system (GPS) technology is at the heart of the
new Earthmate portable navigation device by DeLorme, the nation’s
leading map publishing company.
Earthmate uses the SiRFstar IIe/LP chipset, which now includes SiRF’s
new Adaptive TricklePower feature, to deliver the highest degree
of navigation accuracy and performance at the minimum power consumption,
resulting in far longer battery life.
Earthmate: Accurate Navigation with Minimal Battery Power
Earthmate, shipping now, is a versatile GPS receiver that adds sophisticated
location and navigation capabilities to personal digital assistants
(PDAs) and mobile computers directly from a USB port, requiring
no additional batteries. It comes with DeLorme’s newly updated
Street Atlas USA 2003 mapping software to provide accurate navigation
for applications ranging from personal direction finding to in-vehicle
tracking. Earthmate provides highly accurate location information
because of the accuracy of the underlying SiRFstarIIe/LP chipset,
and because it supports the federal government’s wide area
augmentation system (WAAS) to improve the accuracy of GPS signals
by up to five times, to within three meters. The product provides
position information in less than 45 seconds within powering up,
and requires 75% less power to operate than comparable GPS devices.
"As PDAs explode in popularity and functionality – bigger
CPUs, color screens, support for voice commands – they can
also serve as personal, portable navigation systems in the car,
on a hike, or anywhere," says Kanwar Chadha, SiRF founder and
vice president of business development. "DeLorme has done an
excellent job producing a GPS device with the attributes consumers
really want, such as a compact size, extremely good performance,
and long battery life."
"Our
vision has been to make the GPS technology a cost effective
solution, so it could be embedded in most consumer application",
says Iraj Masarati,
Sirf Technology
Acting VP of Operation. |
Adaptive
TricklePower Further Reduces Power Consumption.
The SiRFstarIIe/LP, introduced in 2002, offers dramatic power efficiency,
high performance and impressive design tools for longer battery
life, quick time to first fixes, and faster integration of GPS location
technology into consumer devices such as cell phones and mobile
computer accessories. SiRFstarIIe/LP’s Adaptive TricklePower
feature, an advanced power management technology that reduces power
consumption by remaining in low-power mode in strong GPS signal
areas, is ideal for DeLorme’s Earthmate application. Adaptive
TricklePower also features intelligent switches to full-power mode
when the signal is weak, such as in severe urban canyons, which
allows applications such as Earthmate to get the best performance
at the lowest power use.
For further power reduction, Earthmate uses SiRF’s popular
Push-to-Fix feature, which reduces average power consumption to
only a few milliwatts.
"Our goal in developing Earthmate was to offer consumers the
very best in accuracy and signal sensitivity, along with very efficient
power usage to minimize battery drain -- all in a very compact size,"
according to Dave Eshelman, DeLorme senior vice president. "SiRF
provided the technology we needed to achieve our quality and performance
goals. The company has earned a reputation as the leader in providing
GPS innovation and performance, and for driving
GPS into the mainstream."
About SiRF:
SiRF Technology, Inc. is the leading provider of GPS enabled silicon
and software location platforms that are designed to enable location
awareness in high-volume mobile consumer devices and commercial
applications. Location awareness refers to the ability of a device
to determine and make use of the information regarding its location.
SiRF’s products enable a range of devices to utilize GPS to
detect location. They have been integrated into mobile consumer
devices, such as automobile navigation systems, cellular phones,
GPS-based mobile computing peripherals and handheld GPS navigation
devices, as well as into commercial applications, such as property
tracking devices and fleet management systems. SiRF markets and
sells its products in four target markets: wireless handheld, automotive,
mobile computing, and embedded consumer applications.
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