smallest and least power consuming SiRF Star III chipset

sirf-gsc3lti.jpgSiRF after acquiring Motorola’s GPS chipset line back in 2005 has become one of the worlds biggest suppliers for GPS receivers for consumer devices. Even though SiRF’s monopoly in the field has seen almost no competition, their closest rivals are Qualcomm and Global Locate. While Qualcomm integrates GPS functionality into some of their chips, Global Locate has come up with a single chip solution to SiRF’s two-chip product.

Just last week SiRF sued Global Locate for patent infringement while TomTom announced that it would use Global Locate as a second source GPS supplier.

Anyhow, SiRFstarIII GSC3LTi is the latest GPS receiver chip from SiRF. Compared to the other models (GSC3LT and GSC3e/LP) in the SiRF Star III series, GSC3LTi is the smallest and the least power consuming. Here is how they measure up:

Model dimensions (mm) power consumption (mW) channels
GSC3e/LP 7 x 10 x 1.4 62 12
GSC3LT 7 x 7 x 1.2 50 12 – 30+
GSC3LTi 6 x 6 x 1.2 50 up to 20

However, in terms of sensitivity and time-to-fix they all measure the same.

  • Sensitivity: -159dBM
  • Hot start: <1 s
  • Warm start: <35 s
  • Cold start: <35 s

One Response to “smallest and least power consuming SiRF Star III chipset”

  1. saeed hilal Says:

    I would like to know if this chip can be on watches to calculate the distance. and i would like to know the cost of it


Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>