Wellingborough, UK, and Thalwil, Switzerland — 17 August 2006 — Sarantel, the leading manufacturer of revolutionary filtering antennas for mobile and wireless devices and u-blox AG, the leading Swiss provider of innovative GPS receiver technology, today announce the availability of a new “Smart Antenna” reference design that will shorten time-to-market and reduce the risk of GPS integration for products ranging from personal navigators to multimedia players with built-in navigation functions.
The new design uses Sarantel’s GeoHelix®-P2 GPS antenna and the high sensitivity LEA-4S GPS module from u-blox.
Based on the ANTARIS® 4 chipset, the LEA-4S GPS module combines unrivaled sensitivity with low power consumption in a package that measures just 17 x 22 mm. u-blox’s award-winning SuperSense® software extends positioning coverage to weak signal areas such as indoor car parks or dense urban canyons, offering
-158 dBm tracking sensitivity without raising power consumption at low signal levels. The LEA-4S module supports DGPS, WAAS/EGNOS, and is AssistNow™-ready, enabling instant positioning on demand, even in weak signal environments.
Leveraging the LEA-4S module’s innovative features, the GeoHelix-P2 GPS antenna from Sarantel, offers a broad, omni-directional reception pattern combined with immunity to proximity detuning — great for mobile terminals and portable navigation devices. The GeoHelix-P2 is designed to be an embedded antenna, with a slim profile well-suited to thin consumer portables. Sarantel and u-blox optimized the reference design to take advantage of the GeoHelix antenna’s excellent filtering properties, maximizing the performance of the combination of antenna and receiver.
“This new reference design brings out the best that u-blox and Sarantel have to offer,” said Thomas Nigg, u-blox Technical Support Manager. “Consumers are becoming ever more sophisticated in their use of navigation devices, demanding better performance, more power efficiency, faster fix times, and greater accuracy. Engineers can treat this combination of the LEA-4S module and GeoHelix antenna as a single component. This system design will provide great customer satisfaction by significantly speeding up the design cycle.”
Ben Sandford, VP Sales of Sarantel, added, “We also see greater demands on the performance, battery life, ease-of-use, and form factor for new navigation devices. The GeoHelix-P2 antenna allows designers to slim down their products. The u-blox LEA-4S receiver module ensures great performance with ease of design — it’s a winning combination for our customers.”
About Sarantel
Sarantel Limited is a dynamic, growing company that develops and manufactures a new generation of miniature filtering antennas for wireless communications. Based on 20+ years of research and development, the company has over 200 worldwide patents covering the design and manufacture of antennas that provide clear signals and high performance in all conditions of use. Sarantel Limited, along with its parent company, Sarantel Group PLC, is based in Wellingborough, England, and has offices in Asia and the United States. It is publicly traded on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange under the symbol SLG. Please visit www.sarantel.com for further information.
Sarantel contacts
Suzanne Snowdowne or Sarah Sherman, Fuse PR
phone: +44 (0) 20 8752 3212 / 3204, email: [email protected]/[email protected]
About u-blox AG
u-blox is an international company headquartered in Switzerland, with sales organizations in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Founded in 1997, u-blox develops leading positioning technology, products and services based on the Global Positioning System (GPS) for the automotive and mobile communications markets. For more information, please visit www.u-blox.com
u-blox contacts
Georg zur Bonsen, Product Management
phone: +41 (44) 722 74 44, e-mail: [email protected]
Alicia Montoya, Marketing Communications
phone: +41 (44) 722 74 86, e-mail: [email protected]