- Expanding navigation technology leadership and enhancing user experience with the announcement of BCM4774

- Improved accuracy by simultaneously supporting 6 satellite groups including Galileo

- Significantly reduce power consumption by offloading data from the AP

- Provides user behavior recognition for improved location awareness

December 10, 2014 – Broadcom, a global wired and wireless semiconductor company, today announced the industry's first GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) positioning hub supporting Galileo, the global satellite system being built by the European Union (EU).

Broadcom’s newly announced BCM4774 simultaneously supports not only Galileo but also GPS, GLONASS, SBAS, QZSS, and BeiDou satellite systems. With 30 additional Galileo satellites planned, smartphones with built-in support for these new systems provide enhanced location awareness with significantly higher accuracy and faster Time-to-First-Fix (TTFF). The unique architecture of this location hub allows the smartphone's main AP to reduce computational load by offloading data to the BCM4774, enabling it to remain in sleep mode for extended periods. Broadcom’s advanced hardware design and enhanced memory significantly preserve mobile device battery life in certain modes and provide up to 95 percent less power consumption compared to existing architectures.

"Broadcom is setting a new standard for navigation technology by announcing the industry's first GNSS location hub for smartphones that supports the Galileo satellite system," said Rahul Patel, Senior Vice President of Broadcom's Wireless Connectivity Combo (WCC) group. "We are striving to push the boundaries of location technology by providing premium performance and enhanced device awareness while supporting minimal power consumption."

Furthermore, Broadcom's new solution adds greater value to data collected from mobile devices by recognizing states in various situations. For instance, a smartphone equipped with the BCM4774 can distinguish between users walking, running, and cycling, and provides location-aware updates that compare identified states for more detailed data results. By having the BCM4774 and the main AP process data directly, Broadcom reduces battery consumption and provides developers and OEMs with the opportunity to decide how to analyze and deliver information.

Broadcom BCM4774 Key Features

The added on-chip memory provides complex on-chip location/sensor hub functions.
Helps OEMs port specific sensor fusion code onto the BCM4774 with an easy-to-use API.
Additional hardware optimization further improves AP power savings through the offloading of sensor fusion, on-chip positioning, geofencing, and location batching.
30% reduction in board area through the integration of the GNSS receiver and sensor hub
Ultra-low power on-chip positioning realizes background/foreground positioning using GNSS
Providing on-chip Wi-Fi positioning using direct connection communication protocols for Broadcom's connectivity combo chip family
Enhanced batching support featuring the largest placement space in the sensor hub for all devices connected to the location hub, including Wi-Fi, MEMS, and GNSS.

Broadcom's BCM4774 is currently being supplied to customers as samples.