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Several Mio and Magellan personal navigation devices (PNDs) now use the ROCm GPS technology from Atheros Communications. According to the company, its AR1511 single-chip GPS receiver and companion Orion 3.1 software suite deliver precise navigation using the Atheros Assisted GPS (AGPS) technology, advanced parallel search, and superior tracking sensitivity. Mio and Magellan PNDs enabled by the ROCm technology can typically resolve their initial position fix in 3.5 seconds or less.

The AGPS technology is designed to speed navigation even in challenging multi-path and obscured-sky environments. In networked-connected devices, quickly secures ephemeris information through Internet or cellular networks. For unconnected devices, ephemeris information previously gathered from satellites is stored and manipulated with algorithms to reliably predict satellite positions for up to five days.

Also, the company’s patent-pending advanced parallel search technology leverages 12 highly sensitive tracking engines to reduce reacquisition times by nearly half and increase positional accuracy by more than 50% in urban canyons, Atheros says. This capability consumes considerably less power than competitive solutions that rely on thousands of correlators to calculate positioning, resulting in prolonged searches, according to Atheros.

Furthermore, the Atheros Install n Go offers system integrators quick configuration and easy installation of navigation software, employing simple text files to support mapping in virtually any type of mobile consumer device. A fully integrated version of the hosted Orion navigation software, Install n Go automatically starts up in the background when the PND or handset’s operating system boots.

With Install n Go, all navigation actions are processed on the AR1511 receiver chip. This frees the host CPU of real-time GPS processing requirements, allowing the Orion software to seamlessly run along side other programs such as GPS mapping or multimedia applications. The AR1511 is available in both chip-scale packages (CSPs) and ball-grid array (BGA) packages.