According to market research firm iSuppli, the three major suppliers TomTom, Garmin and Mitsubishi of Taiwan now account for more than 80% of the global portable navigation device market share.
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As a latecomer to the GPS equipment industry, although Chinese companies have strong production cost advantages, Chinese domestic development engineers are generally inexperienced in system solution selection, circuit design and system design. Engineers face great challenges in designing to meet the needs of specific target customers with stability, low power, high precision and ease of use.
Choose the solution that's right for you
The GPS scheme can be roughly divided into three categories: independent of the main processor, all signal processing and algorithm implementations run on the GPS chipset; some GPS software runs on the system main processor; GPS baseband processing and all algorithms run by The software on the main processor is completed, the so-called software solution. These solutions vary in performance, system resource requirements, cost, and design difficulty, and design engineers need to choose based on their specific product.
“Before choosing a solution, it is important to understand the needs of end users and the platform into which the GPS solution will be integrated,†said Kanwar Chadha, founder and vice president of marketing at SiRF. “For automotive applications, navigation performance is critical. Considering the factors, for portable systems, supporting value-added services and a good combination of features is a major concern."
The choice of MCU is one of the core of the entire solution. "The requirements for MCU depend on what kind of navigation software and operating system are used. Complex navigation software requires MCU to run at a frequency exceeding 200MHz. The hardware platform currently used by ordinary mobile phones is difficult to support such high processing power." Shenzhen Xingliang Liu Yong, manager of electronic GPS products, pointed out. Typically, a system design company or solution provider works with a navigation software company to customize a navigation software version that is appropriate and meets specific needs.
To further reduce size and cost, many GPS providers have introduced software solutions in which the baseband chip is integrated into the DSPxpfzxzjqd_67615.html' target='_blank'>DSP chip. "But this solution is not yet mature, and the performance of the MCU will be affected when performing part of the GPS processing, especially during the search process." Thomas Seiler, CEO of u-blox, pointed out, "Integrating GPS baseband software into Multimedia DSP also increases development risk, delays product launch and increases overall cost."
Zhou Qinghua, manager of automotive electronics department of Shanghai Fengbao Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., said: "Compared with software solutions, hardware solutions run fast without increasing the burden on the main processor, but software solutions have obvious cost advantages."
Stability is the industry's biggest concern for software solutions. "If the software algorithm is not good, the system will take a lot of time to calculate the useful data, which will increase the power consumption and increase the probability of system error. Therefore, how to make the system more stable is the biggest challenge." Acer pointed out.
There are more and more options available in the market. How to choose a product that meets your needs? "You can't choose only by its program manual. You must use the actual road test in the same conditions and time. Comparison." Lin Hongzheng said. “Many times, there is no problem in the module test alone. Once the overall performance test is performed, due to factors such as interference, it may show problems such as unstable performance and poor anti-interference performance.†Hu Bo, Xi’an Huaxun Microelectronics Market Manager also pointed out .
Design challenge analysis
"Developing GPS systems and integrating GPS into the system is very challenging, and design engineers must be aware of the problems they may face," Chadha noted. Since the GPS signal is very weak, any interference can seriously affect its performance. This interference may come from other radios, displays, or other processors, and requires engineers with a familiar RF design in the design team.
In addition, GPS signals are very sensitive, and replacing any one device can cause performance problems, so it is important to pay attention to the RF sensitivity of the GPS system during development and manufacturing.
At present, some portable GPS devices face the problem of too long positioning time for the first time. "This is mainly related to the unreasonable structural design of the product and improper antenna selection. In addition, excessive power supply, ground and white noise and radio frequency interference will make it difficult to locate quickly." Liu Yong pointed out. Although the modular solution can avoid the design challenges of GPS circuits, the impact of power supply on system design is not negligible.
Joerg M. Alber, senior marketing manager at Atmel, said: "Many designers still prefer to adopt modular solutions to avoid the design risks they may have with the chipset." But he also pointed out that the current single-chip solution And reference designs also allow some designers to choose to use chipset solutions directly to reduce additional module costs.
Liu Yong believes that the modular solution can meet the shorter design cycle requirements of portable products such as mobile phones, because the module has integrated RF and peripheral components, and the design of these circuits is one of the most challenging parts. He suggested that designers need to consider occupying a larger PCB area for the antenna and even placing more cost budget on the high-performance GPS antenna.
As market competition intensifies, how to reduce system cost is called one of the main considerations of manufacturers. The map engine usually accounts for about 40% of the cost of the entire solution, so the cost of this part is very high.
"At present, the top 5 PND vendors in the world have developed their own engines." Lin Hongzheng pointed out. However, for most companies, they must consider their design capabilities, product integration capabilities, cost control and volume. There are similar problems with system software design. "For software design, the usual problem is how to integrate software with the design platform," Chadha pointed out.
Technology development trend
As GPS is increasingly used in mobile phones, PMPs, and even portable products such as watches, the low power consumption and small size of the solution have become an important consideration in design considerations.
"At present, we have adopted a 90-nanometer semiconductor process. In the future, we will use 65-nanometer technology to produce our chips, which will further improve efficiency and reduce the size of the chip." Lin Hongzheng said. "Higher semiconductor integration and low power consumption will enable GPS to be used in a wider range of consumer devices," Chadha said. “As technology innovation continues to evolve, new silicon technologies and hardware architectures will further reduce costs,†Seiler noted.
"We are also developing some new technologies to make portable navigation systems have similar performance to automotive systems," Chadha said. The development of semiconductor technology will also bring about changes in solutions. As processor processing power continues to increase, future software solutions will likely gain more applications.
Including the China Beidou system, Europe's Galileo system will enter into practicality in the next few years, the emergence of these systems will improve the reliability and accuracy of positioning, the world's major GPS solution providers have or will soon launch a system that can support multiple systems simultaneously solution.
For example, u-blox's fifth-generation solution, u-blox 5, to be launched in the fourth quarter will support the Galileo system in Europe. "The emergence of multiple satellite systems will improve the reliability of positioning technology," Chadha said.
In addition, the combination with a variety of wireless communication technologies will certainly promote the development of positioning technology. Based on the company's multi-mode positioning platform, Surf & Skyhook Wireless has introduced wireless hybrid positioning technology that provides GPS-WiFi hybrid positioning. This technology can speed up the deployment of certain location-based services and improve the coverage of positioning. "Combining GPS with other sensors and signals will enable location information to be obtained in a timely and accurate manner at any location," Chadha noted.
Currently, some GPSs have combined wireless communication with positioning technology, such as by downloading ephemeris data for fast positioning. Obviously, the combination of positioning technology and communication has more room for imagination. Operators and terminal developers and a large number of third-party developers can realize more creative and profitable businesses based on the existing infrastructure. Features and applications, such as location-based games, information services, advertising, and more. Undoubtedly, the deployment of the third generation mobile communication network from the wind and water will bring such development opportunities to GPS mobile terminals.
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