I've been wondering what kind of GPS chipset is inside my Garmin Nuvi 255w GPS. Some say it is the famous SiRFstarIII, some say it is the Taiwanese MTK chipset, but I find out that it is actually the STMicro Cartesio.
In fact, all the current Garmin Nuvi 2x5 series of GPS are using this Cartesio automotive-grade infotainment application processor with embeded GPS receiver. It features the System-on-Chip (SoC) technology which combines the host CPU and a high-performance 32-channel GPS correlator, and also a large set of peripherals and interfaces.
Here are some of the technical information about the STMicro Cartesio (code name STA2062):
- High performance ARM926 333-MHz CPU
- High performance 32-channel GPS correlator
- Bus/DDR frequency is 166 MHz
- 32 KB embedded ROM for boot
- 2 banks of 64 KB embedded SRAM
- 0.5 KB embedded SRAM for back-up
- 4 GB total linear address space
- Operating temperature range from -40 to 85 °C
My GPS usage experience shows that this STMicro Cartesio is performing pretty good.