TM
Radio Expansion in Portable
Navigation Devices
Enabling 3G Connectivity using the iCE40 Ultra-Low Density FPGA
Portable Navigation Market Dynamics
With smartphones and tablets seeing tremendous market growth,
many Portable Navigation Device (PND) developers are adding
3G capability into the PND to make it a tablet-like device to attract
more customers. PNDs come with a 7 to 10-inch display size,
which is good enough for simple web browsing. However they lack
wireless connectivity which prevents users from extensive web
use. PNDs require either Wi-Fi connectivity or 3G connectivity. 3G
is more practical since PNDs are primarily used on the road where
a reliable Wi-Fi connection is often not available.
Design Challenges
So how would PND developers add 3G connectivity into their
products? First of all, developers need to utilize their existing
platform as much as possible. Fewer changes mean less work
for developers and therefore less risk. This means absolutely no
change to the main processor. So the question is, can existing
PND processors connect to a 3G baseband processor? The
ideal port to connect both would be a SDIO port, however both
Figure 1: Portable Navigation Device with a 10-Inch Display
the 3G baseband processor and PND processor have SDIO host
controllers making it impossible to connect (see Figure 2). This
means an external device is needed to bridge the two processors.
Since no Application-Specific-Standard-Product (ASSP) exists to
Lattice Solutions
SDIO is the ideal interface candidate for this application because
it can run up to 200Mbps (SDIO Spec v2.0 @ 50MHz with 4-bit
mode) offering more than enough bandwidth for existing 3G
connectivity. With SDIO version 2.0 support, it can even support
current 4G (LTE) bandwidth requirements. 4G (LTE) has a
maximum bandwidth requirement of 100Mbps download and
50Mbps upload.
support such a function, it must be done by using either an ASIC
or an FPGA.
Lattice offers a quick way to add 3G capability to PND products
by bridging to the SDIO ports of an existing PND Application
Processor (AP). See Figure 3 for a detailed block diagram.
Both PND AP and baseband processors offer only the SDIO
host controllers preventing it from making the direct connection.
Implementing an SDIO client controller to bridge the PND AP and
high-speed parallel bus for the baseband processor is the ideal
solution and offers the following advantages:
Application
Processor For
Baseband
Processor
Portable
Navigation
Device
• As an SDIO client-based design, it can be added or removed
easily to offer multiple product versions
Figure 2: PND AP does not have a native port to
connect to the baseband processor.
• High-speed parallel bus allows easier driver implementation
• Designers can choose their preferred interface to hook up to
the baseband processor
All of these benefits are offered in a low-cost, low-power, small
form factor package, to satisfy a designer’s needs.
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