Low Cost Front Ends for GPS Receivers

Simon P. Goddard and William L. Barber

Abstract:	Major market opportunities are opening up for Global Positioning systems particularly in automotive and handheld applications. The cost of GPS receivers has reduced significantly in recent years, and this cost reduction must continue in order to penetrate the emerging market opportunities. A higher level of integration enables the a lower hardware cost due to reduced component and assembly cost, and also reliability to be improved. Until recently receiver complexity was dominated by the digital processing and control circuits, however rapid advances in recent years in digital integrated circuitry now mean the front end RF circuit complexity is significant. This paper describes a front end downconverter product (GPlOlO), that has been developed on advanced silicon bipolar technology for GPS systems. The use of silicon, with its established manufacturing techniques, allows the cost of the high level of integration to be reduced compared to other technologies such as Gallium Arsenide. The device is a fully integrated triple conversion downconverter. A phase locked loop (PLL) synthesiser, mixers, RF and IF amplifiers and a 2 bit A/D converter are all integrated on a single silicon chip. A minimum number of external components is then required to give a complete front end receiver chip. The GPlOlO has been designed to be compatible with the GP1020 correlator IC and the two circuits are now being supplied for the manufacture of GPS systems. The paper also includes an overview of future developments in front ends with particular emphasis on automotive and handheld applications.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 6th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1993) September 22 - 24, 1993 Salt Palace Convention Center Salt Lake City, UT
Pages:	939 - 945
Cite this article:	Goddard, Simon P., Barber, William L., "Low Cost Front Ends for GPS Receivers," Proceedings of the 6th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1993), Salt Lake City, UT, September 1993, pp. 939-945.
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