SiRF GPS adds location awareness to Emerging UMPC platform
ASUSTeK Computers Selects SiRFstarIII to Drive Industry’s First Ultra-Mobile PC with Integrated GPS
SAN JOSE, Calif., January 30, 2007 – SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRF), a leading provider of GPS-enabled silicon and premium software location platforms, today revealed its award-winning SiRFstarIII GPS receiver is at the heart of the newly released ASUS R2H Ultra-Mobile PC, the industry’s first ultra-mobile PC with integrated GPS capabilities. The R2H Ultra-Mobile PC represents the entry for both companies into this emerging market, where the ultra-high sensitivity SiRFstarIII GPS receiver is establishing the GPS performance benchmark to enhance the consumer experience for users of this platform.
The single-chip SiRF GSC3f GPS receiver enables ASUS to incorporate real-time, high-performance location awareness and robust navigation capabilities into a feature-rich, ultra-mobile PC, and enables R2H users to employ a variety of business and personal navigation, travel guide and other location-enabled applications. In addition to its integrated SiRF GPS, the ASUS R2H boasts a 7-inch color LCD touch screen with handwritten input support, biometric fingerprint security protection, a high-resolution video camera, 40 to 80 gigabyte hard drives, Bluetooth and WiFi wireless technologies and a Secure Digital (SD) Card reader in a compact package weighing less than two pounds.
“Anticipating emerging market needs and partnering with market leaders to add location awareness to new mobile devices is a key part of our strategy,” said Kanwar Chadha, founder and vice president of marketing for SiRF. “The ASUS R2H sets an important precedent, establishing GPS as a core functional component for UMPCs, and bringing the benefit of location awareness to users of this new class of mobile device.”
The ASUS R2H is designed to fulfill the increasing need for an all-in-one mobile device that enables professionals to stay connected and productive while on the go. The SiRFstarIII architecture’s extremely high sensitivity and robust navigation algorithms enable the ASUS R2H to achieve best-in-class GPS signal acquisition and processing, making real-time navigation practical even through the maze of complex urban canyons and under dense foliage. SiRFstarIII’s industry-leading performance comes at a competitive price point for the high-volume consumer electronics marketplace, along with SiRF’s ability to support the quick time to market and large manufacturing volume needs of this market.
“As a company that takes pride in its high-quality and innovative technology, it was natural for us to choose the industry’s leading GPS solution and the one with the greatest consumer recognition for performance and quality,” said David Kao, PM manager of ASUS Notebook Business at ASUSTek COMPUTER INC. “ASUS has been working closely with SiRF for nearly two years on a variety of location-enabled products, and we look forward to the continued success of our relationship.”
A winner of PC Magazine’s Award for Technical Excellence, the SiRFstarIII architecture can track more than 20 GPS satellites, employs the equivalent of more than 200,000 correlators and sophisticated navigation algorithms, and is able to track signals down to -159 dBm, making real-time navigation practical in almost any environment. The GCS3f combines a complete GPS digital baseband processor, RF front end and stacked flash in a single, compact, 7-mm x 10-mm package to deliver unmatched time to first fix (TTFF) at the low signal levels. |
