30.05.2006

Fastrax Announces New iTrax Multiplatform Family of OEM GPS Receivers

(NOTE: This product is now EOL status. For the latest and current Fastrax products, please contact us at sales@glyn.com.au)

Common Hardware Form Factor Cuts Time-to-Market and Lowers Design Costs, Allowing Customers to Select Modules based on SiRF, Sony or u-Nav Chipset Depending on Application Requirements

Fastrax Ltd (distributor: GLYN), a leading provider of open and portable OEM GPS Software Development environments and programmable OEM GPS receivers, has announced today the new iTrax Multiplatform family of OEM GPS receivers. The iTrax Multiplatform approach is the first in the industry to provide a common form factor between multiple OEM GPS receiver models with different chipsets.

The iTrax Multiplatform family includes the iTrax300, iTrax130 and iTrax03-S receivers, powered by SiRFstar III, Sony CXD2985 and u-Nav uN2110 chipsets, respectively. The increased range of choices allows consumer electronics manufacturers and OEMs to select the optimum receiver for each application, product and market segment.

All iTrax Multiplatform receivers offer high sensitivity and superb navigation performance even in difficult urban canyon environments. User-configurable power management makes iTrax Multiplatform receivers ideally suited to battery-operated systems requiring low power and small sleep state current drain.

Optimum time to market is achieved by the use of a common form factor, development environment, testing tools and technical documentation. Additionally, a single hardware design reduces development, manufacturing and logistics costs.

"The new iTrax Multiplatform concept is a unique offering in the OEM GPS industry, allowing customers to use the same hardware form factor and design tools in products tailored for widely differing market segments. The Multiplatform concept brings substantial time and cost savings for leading high-volume companies whose business depends on the fast time-to-market of cost-effective new products," said Matti Räty, President, Fastrax Ltd.

Key features of the iTrax Multiplatform product family:

1. Includes Fastrax iTrax300, iTrax130 and iTrax03-S receivers
2. Tiny form factor: 16.2 mm x 18.8 mm x 2.3 mm
3. High sensitivity down to –157 dBm
4. Low power consumption down to 34 mA
5. Common connectivity
6. NMEA and binary protocols
7. Two serial ports
8. 1PPS output
9. GPIO available for custom purposes
10. Other peripherals include SPI bus, MMC bus, Capture Timer input, Pulse Measurement input, A/D converter depending on the module

For further application flexibility, the iTrax130 and iTrax03-S receivers support the Fastrax iSuite Software Development Kit. Fastrax iSuite technology may be used to rapidly modify receiver features and functionality and to add user application code to run onboard iTrax receivers. Adding support for wireless modems, Bluetooth devices, mass storage devices, LCD displays and keyboards is possible with minimum effort and without expensive extra components.