Magellan Corp and NEC Corp have signed a deal which will see the companies pushing the development of a global positioning system system on a chip for handhelds, car navigation systems and other consumer applications. Magellan, a subsidiary of satellite manufacturer Orbital Sciences Corp, will provide the GPS expertise while NEC will provide the system on a chip design knowledge. NEC's development team will work on taking Magellan's GPS receiver engine technology and reducing its size to that of a single chip, the GPS system is currently a two-chip system. The companies are working to produce an intellectual property GPS core and associated firmware, which could then be marketed by NEC. NEC anticipates that 5% of handhelds will use some kind of GPS system in the year 2000. The companies expect to announce a product later this year.
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