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When Sirf had their legal problem and were facing court orders to stop importing their product into the U.S., companies often silently replaced the SS III with these competing parts. There was so much hype around it that the ‘everything else is crap’ mindset stuck around even after MT3318 (MTK v1), MT3328//MT3329 (MTK v2), STA5620/Cartesio reached parity with SS III.Īn interesting artifact of this is that in ’05 and ’06, companies loudly boasted of their use of of the SS III product while many are more quiet now. SirfStar III measurably topped it and the buzz around it made it the market darling by the middle of the decade. Magellan’s in-house receiver was king of the hill in the first part of the decade. I answer variations of that question probably ten times a week in much the same way. YMMV, but I’ll take the new interfaces and capabilities over earlier-generation models any day. I still use my 60CSx for comparison testing, but lately the differences have been quite small and often difficult to discern. IMHO, with succeeding generations of firmware, units with the new chipsets are now nearly as good as SiRFstar III models, with some of the remaining minor differences coming from the lack of a quad-helix antenna on most new models. The firmware for these new chipsets was far from mature when first introduced it is much more difficult to fine tune firmware for high-sensitivity chipsets. All high-sensitivity chipsets can pull in weaker satellite signals, which means shorter time to first fix and an improved ability to hold the satellite lock in difficult environments, but this can also result in more multipath reception errors.
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Manufacturers began looking for high-sensitivity chipset alternatives, usually turning to MediaTek or STMicroelectronics.īut are these new chips as good as the SiRF III? My take is basically yes. Then a patent dispute with Broadcom was settled, and not in SiRF’s favor either. Manufacturers had to use the SiRFstar III or risk being ignored by the market. Before this chip, reception in mountainous terrain and in other challenging conditions was often hit or miss. So it’s time to set the record straight, or at the very least give you my opinion on the newer chipsets being used in current GPS receivers.įirst some background - up until couple of years ago, the SiRFstar III chipset was the gold standard for GPS receivers. People agonize about buying a unit without the SiRFstar III chip, partly because GPS enthusiasts like me have long sung its praises. The most common handheld GPS question I get these days is about chipsets.