Monday, September 14, 2015

Broadcom Rolls Out New Navigation Chip Aimed At Wearables

Irvine-based Broadcom announced a new navigation chip aimed at offloading the work currently done by hardware devices such as fitness bands and smartphones, the company said today. According to Broadcom, its new Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) chip is aimed at the Internet-of-Things (IoT), and helps figure out position, velocity, and time on chip, freeing up microcontrollers from those tasks--saving power and processing cycles for other things. The new chip is aimed at the wearables market. Broadcom said the new Broadcom BCM47748 dramatically lowers costs for manufacturers--potentially eliminating the need for an MCU--and supports both GPS and GLONASS and accelerator inputs.

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