SIRF Breaks Key Barriers to GPS-Enable Mobile Wireless Devices; GPS Leader Delivers Comprehensive Solution to Ease LBS Deployment in Wireless Carrier Networks.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

3GSM World Congress 2004

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 17, 2004

Continuing its mission to drive GPS into high-volume consumer markets, SiRF Technology, Inc., a leading supplier of GPS semiconductor and software solutions, today introduced a trio of new location products and technologies that break key barriers to making location awareness an integral part of mainstream mobile devices.

Recognizing the need to provide outstanding location capability across a wide variety of mobile devices, applications and networks, SiRF's comprehensive new location solutions help wireless carriers reduce the cost and risk of location-enabling their networks while enhancing the user experience for location based services (LBS). These solutions open the door to a wider variety of location-aware cell phones, smart phones, PDAs and other wireless handheld devices, and enable carriers to meet the rigorous demands of consumer applications.

The new products, to debut next week at the 3GSM World Congress (February 23 - 26 in Cannes, France, Booth K17, Hall 4), include a chip-set and an IP platform based on SiRF's new, third-generation GPS architecture, SiRFstarIII. With its industry leading performance, SiRFstarIII provides flexibility for location enabling a wide range of mobile devices. The new SiRFSoft mobile GPS software architecture, also unveiled today, represents a new approach to multimode GPS-enabled location technology. Geared toward smart phone devices with powerful application processors, SiRFSoft mobile GPS architecture is designed to deliver scalable performance cost-effectively by eliminating the need for a dedicated GPS baseband chip. SiRF today also introduced the SiRFLoc Server platform, incorporating SiRF's patented SiRFLoc multimode technology. Deliverable through SiRF's infrastructure partners, in a carrier-class network location server, the platform supports either standards-based control plane or IP-based user plane operation.

Consumers' performance expectations in the wireless location market have become much more rigorous. In order to satisfy consumer expectations, response time for a location application has to be fast, and work in varied wireless environment, under difficult signal conditions -- indoors and out -- even if the network connection is lost altogether. SiRFStarIII and SiRFSoft both bring unique benefits to mobile devices and are designed to deliver fast times to first fix and high-sensitivity acquisition to make real-time navigation practical where conventional GPS often fails.

"Wireless carriers can now deliver location technology with the high performance that consumers demand, and the price point needed for mass-market deployment," said Kanwar Chadha, founder and vice president of marketing for SiRF. "SiRF's new architectures are designed to deliver industry-leading GPS performance optimized for mobile platforms, and enable cost-effective LBS deployment in wireless networks. Most importantly, our customers and carrier partners can rely on the experience of a leading GPS supplier in supporting their needs."

SiRFstarIII architecture, with the equivalent of more than 200,000 correlators, is designed to enable fast and deep GPS signal search capabilities, resulting in superior performance over today's architectures that contain a few hundred to a few thousand correlators. The first chip-set based on the SiRFstarIII architecture consists of a highly integrated baseband IC and an RF IC that together are designed to deliver a complete location engine in a very small form factor. The SiRFstarIII IP core is available in a modular form for integration into high volume wireless chip-set platforms.

"Motorola's iDEN Subscriber Group has been in the forefront of developing GPS enabled phones through our relationship with SiRF," said Jaime A. Borras, corporate vice president of Technical Staff, Motorola iDEN Subscribers Group. "GPS is now an integral part of our platform, and we expect the SiRFstarIII architecture to enhance the user experience in a range of new and exciting location based applications and services."

SiRFSoft GPS architecture is optimized for efficient usage of application processor engines that are driving many of today's smart phone and wireless connected PDAs. Portable to the market leading platforms such as Intel XScale(TM) and OMAPI, its performance is scalable to the available throughput of these devices.

"Intel's XScale technology is playing a key role in driving the smart phone and PDA market segments by enabling our customers to provide a variety of new features and services," said Sam Arditi, vice president and general manager of Intel's Wireless Communications and Computing Group. "The SiRFSoft mobile GPS software is a major step towards making location-awareness ubiquitous in mobile devices, and clearly demonstrates XScale's capacity to foster new and compelling applications."

Utilizing SiRF's patented anti-multipath triangulator (AMT) technology, the SiRFLoc server provides accurate location while supporting both MS based and MS assisted positioning modes. Designed expressly for wireless location-based services development, SiRFLoc Server is both highly flexible and scalable.

All three new solutions support the patented SiRFLoc multimode location platform and are compatible with wireless industry standards for location technology.

About SiRF Technology

SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc. develops and markets semiconductor and software products that are designed to enable location-awareness utilizing GPS and other location technologies in high-volume mobile consumer devices and commercial applications. Location-awareness refers to the ability of a device to determine and make use of information regarding its location. SiRF's technology has been integrated into mobile consumer devices, such as automobile navigation systems, mobile phones, PDAs, GPS-based peripherals, and handheld GPS navigation devices, and into commercial applications, such as asset tracking devices and fleet management systems. SiRF markets and sells its products in four target platforms: mobile phones, automotive systems, portable computing devices, and embedded consumer devices.

Editors Note: SiRF, SiRFstar, SiRF plus orbit design in purple and gold, SoftGPS are registered trademarks of SiRF Technology, Inc. SiRFstarIII, SnapLock, SnapStart, SingleSat, Foliage Lock, TricklePower, Push-to-Fix, WinSiRF, SiRFLoc, SiRFDRive, SiRFNav, SiRFXTrac, SiRFSoft, and Multimode Location Engine, are trademarks of SiRF Technology, Inc. Other trademarks are property of their respective companies.

For additional information, please visit www.sirf.com.