今天在网上闲逛就看到这个文章,Garmin也开始使用MTK的话,好象有好戏可以看了
From:http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20070301PD206.html

Garmin International has completed validation of MediaTek’s GPS chips and will begin placing orders by the end of the first quarter, according to industry sources.

MediaTek declined to comment on possible orders from Garmin, but the Taiwan-based IC designer house indicated that it has been sampling its GPS chips with clients.

The sources noted that Garmin’s orders with MediaTek may further dent SiRF Technology’s domination of the GPS chip market. Earlier this year, TomTom announced that it will adopt Global Locate’s GPS solutions.

With more competition in the market, a price war may be pending, the sources added.

According to the sources, the current size of the GPS chip market is about 10 million units a year. SiRF, with its 50% share of the market, saw revenues of only about US$247 million in 2006 – an indication of the small size of the GPS chip market.

However, with expectation that GPS will find explosive growth in handsets and other portable devices has attracted some 30 to 40 IC designers and IDMs to actively develop chip solutions, the sources said.

Taiwan-based IC designers have some advantages in terms of location because Taiwan-based contract manufacturers of GPS devices are seeing orders rise, the sources noted.

Apart from MediaTek, other IC designers, such as Princeton Technology, Prolific Technology, Youngtek Electronics, and MStar Semiconductor, are also developing GPS chips. But in the past, Taiwan IC designers have only supplied GPS chips to second-tier or China-based clients, and have never entered the supply chain of first-tier vendors, the source said.