Broadcom's New GPS Receiver Solution for Mobile Devices Sets Benchmarks for Performance, Size and Integration

IRVINE, Calif., Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced its next generation single-chip global positioning system (GPS) solution for mobile devices.  This latest GPS receiver sets new standards in performance and low power consumption with state-of-the-art sensitivity and navigation performance, and provides the smallest printed circuit board (PCB) footprint when compared to competitive solutions.  The new Broadcom® BCM4751 GPS receiver solution and associated software are now shipping in production handsets and will be demonstrated at next week's 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.  

Highlights/Key Facts:

• High consumer demand for location based services (LBS) is driving market growth for GPS-enabled handsets with LBS being one of the fastest growing revenue segments.  GPS chipsets are now regarded by network operators as an essential feature for 3G phones and marketing initiatives exploiting location based services are beginning to emerge from key device suppliers and network operators.  ABI Research sees this trend accelerating as market sector participants continue to vie for the attention of younger buyers and subscribers, and predicts that 48 percent of all handsets will be GPS-enabled by 2014.
• The Broadcom BCM4751 is a single-chip GPS receiver used for tracking and navigation, primarily in mobile devices.  Its massively parallel, hardware correlator architecture provides faster signal searches, accurate real-time navigation, improved tracking sensitivity and very low average power consumption.  The sensitivity and navigation performance of the BCM4751 continue to set the standard for the industry.
  • Enhanced tracking sensitivity allows GPS-enabled mobile devices to detect very weak signals including those partially blocked or reflected by buildings or other structures.  In these environments, GPS devices sometimes fail to achieve a location 'fix' or take a long time to do so.  With the higher sensitivity of the new BCM4751 GPS receiver, these initial location fixes occur much faster, and in many cases, will achieve a location 'fix' when competitive products are unable to do so.  
• The BCM4751 also integrates a number of external components that reduce the overall system cost for manufacturers and enables very small footprints when designing GPS into mobile devices.  With real estate in mobile devices at a premium, a complete GPS solution, featuring the BCM4751, will use less than 30 mm2 of board space, including all of the necessary components for a typical cellular phone implementation.
• The BCM4751 supports additional satellite constellations including the Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) and the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) for Japanese applications, making as many as twelve additional satellites available for use in navigation.  This support for satellite constellations greatly aids urban canyon navigation, providing a straighter, more accurate navigation solution, as well as position fixes in more areas, when compared to competitive solutions.  
• The key features of the new Broadcom BCM4751 GPS receiver include:
  • 65 nanometer CMOS design featuring a highly integrated radio frequency (RF) and baseband processor with extremely low power consumption.
  • The smallest complete PCB footprint: 30 mm2 including band-pass filter, TCXO and passives.
  • High sensitivity operation.
  • Increased satellite availability: supports GPS, SBAS and QZSS satellites at L1 frequency band.
  • Integrated power management allowing direct connection to the battery.
  • Available in both wafer level ball grid array (WLBGA) and fine pitch ball grid array (FPBGA) packages.
• The BCM4751 GPS receiver also includes software that is optimized for cellular integration and the demands of international standards bodies such as 3GPP, GERAN and OMA, which promote the delivery of GPS assistance data over high-speed cellular networks.  The software includes message handling protocols for Control Plane and User Plane assisted-GPS (A-GPS) standards such as SUPL1.0.  The GPS software also provides native support for Broadcom's Long Term Orbit (LTO) extended ephemeris service.  In addition, the software is optimized for personal navigation performance and includes sophisticated algorithms to mitigate multi-path errors.

Supporting Quotes:

Scott Pomerantz, Vice President & General Manager, Broadcom's GPS line of business

"As consumer use of location based services grows, we are seeing an incredible level of interest from our customers in the cellular and personal navigation device markets for GPS and assisted-GPS technologies.  As a technology leader in the GPS chip market, we now offer our new BCM4751 solution that provides the industry's best overall sensitivity, lowest average power consumption and the most complete portfolio of software, and is complemented by our unique ability to integrate this GPS technology into other leading mobile chips and processors."

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Broadcom Wireless Connectivity Group

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Other Supporting Resources:

BCM4751 Product Page

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BCM4751 Graphic

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About Broadcom

Broadcom Corporation is a major technology innovator and global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications.  Broadcom products enable the delivery of voice, video, data and multimedia to and throughout the home, the office and the mobile environment.  We provide the industry's broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art system-on-a-chip and software solutions to manufacturers of computing and networking equipment, digital entertainment and broadband access products, and mobile devices.  These solutions support our core mission: Connecting everything®.

Broadcom, one of the world's largest fabless communications semiconductor companies, with 2009 revenue of $4.49 billion, holds more than 3,800 U.S. and 1,550 foreign patents, and has more than 7,800 additional pending patent applications, and one of the broadest intellectual property portfolios addressing both wired and wireless transmission of voice, video, data and multimedia.

A FORTUNE 500® company, Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and has offices and research facilities in North America, Asia and Europe.  Broadcom may be contacted at +1.949.926.5000 or at www.broadcom.com.

Cautions regarding Forward-Looking Statements:

All statements included or incorporated by reference in this release, other than statements or characterizations of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry and business, management's beliefs, and certain assumptions made by us, all of which are subject to change.  Forward-looking statements can often be identified by words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "predicts," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "may," "will," "should," "would," "could," "potential," "continue," "ongoing," similar expressions, and variations or negatives of these words.  Examples of such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the demand for and functionality of advanced GPS solutions and our position in that market.  These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statement.

Important factors that may cause such a difference for Broadcom in connection with the BCM4751 GPS receiver SoC solution include, but are not limited to:

• the rate at which our present and future customers and end-users adopt our GPS technologies for mobile applications;
• trends in the wireless networking markets in various geographic regions, including seasonality in sales and consumer products into which our products are incorporated;
• the gain or loss of a key customer, design win or order;
• the volume of our product sales and pricing concessions on volume sales;
• our ability to timely and accurately predict market requirements and evolving industry standards and to identify opportunities in new markets; and
• competitive pressures and other factors such as the qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies, and the resulting effects on sales and pricing of our products.

Additional factors that may cause Broadcom's actual results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to the list that can be found at http://www.broadcom.com/press/additional_risk_factors/Q12010.php.

Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, recent Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings discuss the foregoing risks as well as other important risk factors that could contribute to such differences or otherwise affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.  The forward-looking statements in this release speak only as of this date. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statement, except as required by law.

Broadcom, the pulse logo, Connecting everything, and the Connecting everything logo are among the trademarks of Broadcom Corporation and/or its affiliates in the United States, certain other countries and/or the EU.  Any other trademarks or trade names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Broadcom Corporation; BRCM Mobile & Wireless