The SiRFstar V 5ea brings a number of exciting SiRFstar V architectural features to the automotive industry – from quad-GNSS support, LTE immunity and MEMS aiding to improved sensitivity and margins and low BOM – that result in significant location performance improvements, small package size, ease of integration and low-cost implementation. Positioning enhancement technologies are designed to support fast times to first fix and improved positional accuracy, even when antenna placement within a vehicle is less than optimal, such as under the dashboard, and the SiRFstar V 5ea is ready to support SiRFDRive™ dead-reckoning technology, when available.

The 5ea offers a number of features, including an on-chip LNA, fail-safe I/O, integrated switchers, single supply voltage, simple RF matching and small size and packaging designed to make it easier for designers to use and integrate into a vehicle platform, giving suppliers and OEMs much greater flexibility in system design and antenna placement and helping speed time to commercialization. Besides the AEC-Q100 qualification, the 5ea device undergoes strict manufacturing, assembly and testing procedures to meet the tight automotive quality and reliability standards.

With its 24 additional satellites (30, when fully deployed), GLONASS is engineered to provide a valuable augmentation to GPS and allow the SiRFstar V 5ea to boost location performance, especially in urban canyons, by increasing service availability, reducing observation time, and making measurements more precise for the most demanding applications. The 5ea additionally can support Galileo and Compass systems, when they become available, with a software upgrade for even greater performance and ensured compliance to existing and future requirements of national GNSS systems.

The SiRFstar V architecture has been designed from the ground up to provide superior immunity to interference from LTE (long-term evolution) radio signals, giving suppliers and OEMs confidence in its ability to coexist in their designs with LTE. Coexistence of LTE with GPS, GLONASS and other GNSS signals is critical for continuous location awareness and use of location-based services, and QTIL has implemented a number of mechanisms to boost immunity to LTE interference in the SiRFstar V 5ea to ensure the most satisfying user experience.

The SiRFstar V 5ea also includes improved active jammer removal, a unique QTIL technology, which is designed to improve location performance by continually tracking and eliminating radio interference from up to eight sources, a critical requirement when location engines are in electrically noisy environments like those found in modern digital dashboards.

The complete QTIL solution includes navigation software running either on-chip (engine mode) or on the host CPU (tracker mode) engineered to calculate the precise position, velocity and time and provide complete control of GNSS operation, including navigation, nav-aiding and hybrid location sub-functions.