Although cellular handsets will continue to dominate shipments of devices with integrated GPS, the next growth spurt for the technology will come from mobile consumer electronics (CE) and mobile computing applications, reports analyst In-Stat. Mobile computing and CE devices will comprise over 100 million units in 2013.
“With growing attach rates and market maturity, GPS chipset providers must carefully evaluate which technologies to integrate into single chip solutions,” says Jim McGregor, the company’s chief technology strategist. “Integration of the RF front-end and base band processor may not be enough. For example, which radio makes the most sense to integrate with, given the single mini-card slot of PC-based platforms?”
Other research by the company found the following:
- Although the number of devices shipping with integrated GPS is increasing, the attach rates and the devices shipments have been hampered by the faltering economy;
- By 2012, there will be more CE devices with integrated GPS shipping than there are stand alone personal navigation devices;
- Mobile computing holds a lot of promise for GPS with 26 million GPS enabled units shipping in 2013, but there are barriers. In the netbook segment for example, cost, integrating yet another antenna and only one mini-card slot will inhibit adoption;
- CPUs must be integrated to manage the host processor load.
- Infrastructure radios (802.11, WiMax, LTE) are likely candidates for integration.
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