Nick Mehta and Arthur Yang
Xilinx

Asking for directions is fast becoming a foreign concept, much like the art of folding a map or a newspaper. This impending extinction is attributed to the increasing popularity of the Global Positioning System (GPS). GPS is present in a growing number of products: automobiles, cell phones, personal data assistants, even wristwatches. Despite this ever growing presence of GPS equipped devices, dedicated Portable Navigation Devices (PNDs) are enjoying an all time boom, feeling untroubled by the smaller screen size and inferior performance of nondedicated equipment.

Global shipments of GPS equipped devices are predicted to reach 350 million units by 2010. The relative ease of entry into the PND market makes navigation tools an attractive market for new manufacturers. With the average unit cost of PNDs decreasing, and each manufacturer offering a wealth of differing models, new players in the market are under great pressure to offer product differentiation to gain valuable market share.

This white paper discusses using a CoolRunner-II CPLD to augment the processor feature set to aid a PND manufacturer to quickly produce a differentiated product.