Switzerland-based fabricationless supplier of embedded wireless communication and positioning solutions, u-blox, has launched the u-blox 7 Global Positioning System System-on-Chip (GPS SoC) that uses the 65 nm Low Power Enhanced (LPe) RF platform from Global Foundries.
UBX-G7020
U-blox upgraded its Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) platform which led to the development of the UBX-G7020 multi-GNSS chip that is compatible with all GPS standards such as GLONASS, GPS, Compass, Galileo and QZSS. The chip incorporates both baseband and RF subsystems. By employing the 65 nm LPe RF platform, u-blox has been able to develop an extremely small and low power satellite receiver IC. The collaborative work between Global Foundries and u-blox to develop the GPS SoC commenced in 2010. The wafer production was ramped up at the Fab 7 facility of Global Foundries in Singapore in the first quarter of 2012.
Muljadi Tantra, Senior Director for Product Marketing at Global Foundries, expressed pleasure at the foundry partnership with u-blox for wafer production. Launched in 2009, the foundry’s 65-nm LPe RF platform comprises a suite of components such as RF devices, metal-insulator-metal capacitor (MIM), metal-oxide-metal capacitor (VNCAP), varactors and thick metal inductors. The physical design kit comprises of an extensive range of inductor synthesizers and parameterized cells that are scalable. The 65 nm platform finds application in numerous high-performance and low-power SoC devices employed in mobile applications such as Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, Mobile TV and LTE receiver.