An $85 satellite positioning terminal should be a reality following the announcement of a two-chip GPS solution from SGS-Thomson Microelectronics (STM).
Other chipsets use separate controllers and memory and up to 50 discrete components rather than the 12 capacitors used by the STM version, which costs less than $25.
The development is one of the first to use the SH technology newly acquired from Hitachi.
The chipset integrates rom and ram into the digital processor around its ST20 core. But STM is planning a version based around the SH3 DSP core as well, says Steve Sutton, business development manager for GPS, navigation and driver information systems.
The chipset is aimed at the car market in Japan, where STM has 30% of the market, but it is also looking to use it for handheld GPS terminals in the US and Europe. STM has already designed the RF front-end around its bipolar RF receiver chip and no external memory or microcontroller is needed.
STM is also looking to develop a version that will be able to use the US GPS satellite system and the Russian equivalent to offer greater availability of any four satellites to determine a position.