CEVA, Inc. announced that Xi'an HuaXun Microelectronics Inc. and CEVA have partnered to develop a software-based GPS solution for the CEVA-X family of DSP cores and the MM2000 portable multimedia platform. Traditional GPS solutions require a dedicated GPS processor to perform the intensive GPS computations. In contrast, HuaXun's software-based GPS solution eliminates the need for a separate GPS engine by leveraging the performance of the CEVA-X DSP core already present in the SoC to handle the GPS computations.

    Targeting cell phones, portable multimedia players and portable navigation devices, this software-based approach to GPS will enable CEVA-X and MM2000 licensees to add GPS capability to their baseband and multimedia SoCs without any hardware modifications or increase in die size. CEVA-X is a high performance DSP architecture framework, widely licensed for cellular baseband and portable multimedia applications.

    Inherent benefits of this approach to adding GPS functionality include true product differentiation, lower die size and cost, quicker time-to-market for existing designs and the flexibility to fine tune GPS performance for target applications. CEVA's fully programmable mobile multimedia platform solution, MM2000 is based on CEVA-X DSP technology and offers fastest time-to-market for developing portable multimedia applications. MM2000 is configurable for a broad range of end markets, from low-cost video only applications through to complete multimedia solutions for high resolution media products.

    "There is a fast-growing demand for GPS solutions in the Chinese market, particularly for integration into portable navigation devices, mobile handset and portable media player applications. The software GPS approach will allow ultra-low cost integration of high-performance GSP functionality into such devices," said Mr. Peter Zhou, CEO of HuaXun. "We are excited to cooperate with CEVA who has a strong customer base in China's mobile and semiconductor industry, and whose CEVA-X DSP architecture delivers industry leading performance and energy-efficiency."

    "The CEVA-X DSP Cores and the MM2000 platform are being adopted by a fast-growing number of IC vendors in Greater China, including leading mobile and multimedia chipset vendors. In collaboration with HuaXun we can now offer these customers the ability to add high-performance GPS functionality to CEVA-X and MM2000 based multimedia and cellular baseband designs without the added expense of hardware modifications," said Eran Briman, vice president, corporate marketing at CEVA. "HuaXun is a leading GPS company in China with a truly competitive GPS baseband and RF solution and we are pleased to partner with them."

    The Very Long Instruction Word - Single Instruction Multiple Data DSP architecture delivers breakthrough performance and low power consumption. The CEVA-X family of DSP cores includes the dual MAC CEVA-X1620 and CEVA-X1622, as well as the quad MAC CEVA-X1641. The demand for mobile infotainment applications such as mobile TV, streaming video, video clip messages, video-phone and imaging is growing at a relentless pace. Handset vendors and other consumer device manufacturers are introducing new devices to the consumer electronics market on a weekly basis, including multimedia phones, Portable Media Players, digital still cameras and camcorders.