Epson Offers Licensing for its World-Class A-GPS Receiver Technology for Mobile

Seiko Epson Corporation ("Epson") today announced that it has begun offering licensing for its world-class A-GPS (Assisted Global Positioning System) reception technology for mobile phones and portable information terminals. This technology is designed for the SH-Mobile G2¹ single-chip LSIs used in mobile phones, and is licensed to Renesas Technology Corp.

Epson will provide licensing for technology and information regarding GPS baseband processing and A-GPS-compatible software that will allow detection capabilities significantly better than those of existing GPS technology through an extensive signal detection range extending from strong outdoor to weak indoor signals. By integrating this technology with the high-performance mobile phone platform realized in the SH-Mobile G2 and optimizing it for use in W-CDMA² mobile phones such as FOMA³ models, it will become possible to obtain high-speed and high-precision positional information from locations indoors, outdoors, or within moving vehicles. This will provide mobile phone users with access to emergency support and location-based services that fully meet their needs and safety requirements.

In the future, Epson plans to continue forging ahead with technological development in the positional information technology field in order to provide a wide variety of superior, original technologies to the mobile phone industry and contribute to the expansion of the location-based service market.

Notes
1. SH-Mobile G2 is a single-chip LSI for dual mode communications terminals under joint development by Renesas Technology Corp., NTT DoCoMo, Inc., Fujitsu Limited, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, and Sharp Corporation.
2. W-CDMA is a third generation (3G) mobile phone system.
3. FOMA is a registered trademark of NTT DoCoMo, Inc. All other company, product, and brand names mentioned are the exclusive properties of their respective owners.