HuaXun ‘sea turtles’ and CEVA deliver software GPS
Fully featured software GPS (global positioning systems, or more commonly known today as SatNav) solutions from HuaXun, a Chinese microelectronics start-up, will allow CEVA’s DSP and multimedia MM2000 licensees to add GPS functionality to existing cellular baseband and multimedia SoCs without requiring a separate dedicated chip . Xi'an HuaXun Microelectronics Inc (HuaXun) was established in June 2004 by several PhD students who graduated in the United States and returned to China to start HuaXun.
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Located in the Xi'an high-tech zones, HuaXun is focused on designing and industrialising solutions for GPS, Galileo and Beidou position system. The company has more than 100 employees, including 65 percent of senior engineers, including doctors and masters, and 10 percent returned from overseas referred to as ‘sea turtles’.
HuaXun and CEVA partnered to develop a software-based GPS solution for the CEVA-X family of DSP cores and the MM2000 portable multimedia platform. Targeting cell phones, portable multimedia players and portable navigation devices, this software-based approach to GPS will enable CEVA-X and MM2000 licensees to add GPS capability to their baseband and multimedia SoCs without any hardware modifications or increase in die size.
Traditional GPS solutions require a dedicated GPS processor to perform the intensive GPS computations. In contrast, HuaXun's software-based GPS solution eliminates the need for a separate GPS engine by leveraging the performance of the CEVA-X DSP core already present in the SoC to handle the GPS computations. Inherent benefits of this approach to adding GPS functionality include true product differentiation, lower die size and cost, quicker time-to-market for existing designs and the flexibility to fine tune GPS performance for target applications.
“There is a fast-growing demand for GPS solutions in the Chinese market, particularly for integration into portable navigation devices, mobile handset and portable media player applications. The software GPS approach will allow ultra-low cost integration of high-performance GSP functionality into such devices,” said Mr. Peter Zhou, CEO of HuaXun. “We are excited to cooperate with CEVA who has a strong customer base in China's mobile and semiconductor industry, and whose CEVA-X DSP architecture delivers industry leading performance and energy-efficiency.”
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© Chilli Publishing Ltd 2008 |
10 MAR 2008 |
