IMS: GPS Tech Catching Up with Digital Cameras

February 1, 2008

All the major GPS IC companies are looking at the digital camera market because of the volumes involved — more than100 million units shipped in 2006 and growing — and the interest that digital camera manufacturers are showing in the technology, market research firm IMS Research said today.

Recent achievements at GPS receiver manufacturers such as Air Semiconductors, SiRF, Qualcomm, u-blox, Glonav, and Geotate (NXP Software's spinoff) are finally paving the way for intelligent integration of GPS in digital cameras. These manufacturers have been looking at GPS technology for years now and its applicability to digital photography, and they have all been facing the issue of the quick usage mode of digital cameras, IMS observed. This conflicts directly with GPS receiver technology, which can require tens of seconds or even minutes in order to get a location fix.

Solving this conflict is a key element for a successful uptake of the technology in the market, the market researcher concluded.

"Camera manufacturers are unsure of traditional solutions because they are too power hungry, too expensive and take too long to get a location fix," said Matia Grossi, IMS researcher. "The imminent arrival of GPS-enabled camera phones has placed increased emphasis on addressing this capability. Furthermore in the past years their margins have thinned significantly, with the commoditization of their products and the competition from the cellular market, making the issue even more complicated. At the moment there are limited GPS-enabled solutions, mostly in the high-end SLR market using external (and expensive) devices."

A new wave of GPS techniques are emerging, however, that will solve the issue in different and innovative ways, according to the market researcher. As a result, IMS Research forecasts that the GPS camera market will show very strong growth over the next five years, growing from a sub-million unit market in 2006, with a CAGR of more than 200 percent. Currently, two of the most interesting of these techniques are those brought to the market by Geotate and Air Semiconductor.

In Geotate's Snapspot, the receiver is only on for a fraction of a second, while the user takes a picture. Snapspot is instantaneous and user-independent, without eating up the battery, making for a perfect user case. From the manufacturer's point of view it is a small, cost-effective way of addressing the geo-tagging market, IMS said.

In Air Semiconductor's Airwave-1 receiver the receiver is always on, dynamically trading accuracy with power efficiency to find the optimum balance for each application, according to IMS. The receiver consumes as little as 1mA (on average) and is independent of the existing hardware, providing a perfect usage mode for cameras.

"The new solutions that are being presented could finally open the market to GPS and while it might be too early to expect any major announcements involving GPS at the 2008 edition of PMA, please watch this space," Grossi said. PMA is a photography industry tradeshow taking place this week in Las Vegas.