U-blox

Last updated
u-blox Holding AG
Company type Public company
SIX:  UBXN
Industry Semiconductors, Internet of Things (IoT)
Founded1997
Headquarters
Thalwil, canton of Zürich, Switzerland
Key people
  • Stephan Zizala (CEO)
  • André Müller (Chairman)
RevenueIncrease2.svg SFr  624 million (2021) [1]
Increase2.svg SFr 121.8 million (2021) [1]
Increase2.svg SFr 101.8 million (2021) [1]
Number of employees
1,300 (2023) [2]
Website www.u-blox.com

u-blox is a Swiss company that creates wireless semiconductors and modules for consumer, automotive and industrial markets. They operate as a fabless IC and design house. The company is listed at the Swiss Stock Exchange (SIX:UBXN) and has offices in the US, Singapore, China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, India, Pakistan, Australia, Ireland, the UK, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Italy and Greece.

Contents

History

u-blox is a spin-off of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) [3] [4] and was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Thalwil, Switzerland. Thomas Seiler served as chief executive officer of u-blox AG from 2002 until his retirement on Dec 31, 2022. Stephan Zizala, who joined the company in 2022, succeeded Seiler. [5]

In 2016, u-blox opened a new office in Taipei, Taiwan. [6]

Products and technology

u-blox provides starter kits which allow quick prototyping of variety of applications for the Internet of Things. [7] It develops and sells chips and modules that support global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), including receivers for GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou and QZSS. [8] The wireless range consists of GSM-, UMTS- and CDMA2000 and LTE modules, as well as Bluetooth- and WiFi-modules. All these products enable the delivery of complete systems for location-based services and M2M applications (machine-to-machine communication) in the Internet of Things, that rely on the convergence of 2G/3G/4G, Bluetooth-, Wi-Fi technology and satellite navigation. [9] A collaboration to create GNSS receiver that work globally was started between u-blox, SoftBank and ALES in 2021. [10] One year later, in 2022, u-blox released the at the time smallest LTE Cat 4 Module LARA-L6. [11] The company launched a dual-band GNSS module in 2023 that uses the L1 as well as the L5 GPS frequency bands. [12] In 2024 u-blox released the LEXI-R10, which was, according to the company, the smallest LTE Cat 1bis module at time of launch. [13] [14]

Acquisitions

They acquired a dozen companies after their IPO in 2007, after acquiring connectblue [15] in 2014 and Lesswire in 2015 [16] they acquired Rigado's module business in 2019. [17] In 2020, u-blox acquired Thingstream. [18] In 2021, u-blox AG acquired Sapcorda Services GmbH, a provider of high precision GNSS (global navigation satellite system) services. [19] and Naventik GmbH, a German company specializing in the development of safe positioning solutions for autonomous driving. [20]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galileo (satellite navigation)</span> European global navigation satellite system

Galileo is a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) created by the European Union through the European Space Agency (ESA) and operated by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA). It is headquartered in Prague, Czechia, with two ground operations centres in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, and in Fucino, Italy,. The €10 billion project went live in 2016. It is named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GLONASS</span> Russian satellite navigation system

GLONASS is a Russian satellite navigation system operating as part of a radionavigation-satellite service. It provides an alternative to Global Positioning System (GPS) and is the second navigational system in operation with global coverage and of comparable precision.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nordic Semiconductor</span> Norwegian multinational semiconductors manufacturer

Nordic Semiconductor ASA was founded in 1983 and is a Norwegian fabless technology company with its headquarters in Trondheim, Norway. The company specializes in designing ultra-low-power wireless communication semiconductors and supporting software for engineers developing and manufacturing Internet of Things (IoT) products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Garmin</span> Multinational technology company

Garmin Ltd. is an American, Swiss-domiciled multinational technology company founded in 1989 by Gary Burrell and Min Kao in Lenexa, Kansas, United States, with operational headquarters in Olathe, Kansas. Since 2010, the company is legally incorporated in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OnStar</span> Subsidiary of General Motors

OnStar Corporation is a subsidiary of General Motors that provides subscription-based communications, in-vehicle security, emergency services, turn-by-turn navigation, and remote diagnostics systems throughout the United States, Canada, Chile, China, Mexico, Europe, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Automotive navigation system</span> Part of the automobile controls

An automotive navigation system is part of the automobile controls or a third party add-on used to find direction in an automobile. It typically uses a satellite navigation device to get its position data which is then correlated to a position on a road. When directions are needed routing can be calculated. On the fly traffic information can be used to adjust the route.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assisted GNSS</span> System to improve the time-to-first-fix of a GNSS receiver

Assisted GNSS (A-GNSS) is a GNSS augmentation system that often significantly improves the startup performance—i.e., time-to-first-fix (TTFF)—of a global navigation satellite system (GNSS). A-GNSS works by providing the necessary data to the device via a radio network instead of the slow satellite link, essentially "warming up" the receiver for a fix. When applied to GPS, it is known as assisted GPS or augmented GPS. Other local names include A-GANSS for Galileo and A-Beidou for BeiDou.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Satellite navigation</span> Use of satellite signals for geo-spatial positioning

A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geopositioning. A satellite navigation system with global coverage is termed global navigation satellite system (GNSS). As of 2024, four global systems are operational: the United States's Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), and the European Union's Galileo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telit Cinterion</span> Internet of things communications company

Telit Cinterion is an Internet of Things (IoT) Enabler company headquartered in Irvine, California, United States. It is a privately held company with key operations in the US, Brazil, Italy, Israel, and Korea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sierra Wireless</span> Canadian wireless communications company

Sierra Wireless is a Canadian multinational wireless communications equipment designer, manufacturer and services provider headquartered in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. It also maintains offices and operations in the United States, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, India, France, Australia and New Zealand.

Augmentation of a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is a method of improving the navigation system's attributes, such as precision, reliability, and availability, through the integration of external information into the calculation process. There are many such systems in place, and they are generally named or described based on how the GNSS sensor receives the external information. Some systems transmit additional information about sources of error, others provide direct measurements of how much the signal was off in the past, while a third group provides additional vehicle information to be integrated in the calculation process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MediaTek</span> Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company

MediaTek Inc., sometimes informally abbreviated as MTK, is a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company that designs and manufactures a range of semiconductor products, providing chips for wireless communications, high-definition television, handheld mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers, navigation systems, consumer multimedia products and digital subscriber line services as well as optical disc drives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GMV (company)</span>

GMV, founded in 1984, is a Spanish private capital business group with an international presence and more than 3300 workers. In its early days, it focused on the space and defense sectors, being the contract for the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) the beginning of its growth. Over the years it has diversified its operations and expanded into other fields becoming today's technology group, which comprises 11 areas of specialization: Space, Aeronautics, Defense and Security, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), Automotive, Cybersecurity, Healthcare, and Digital Public Services, Industry, Financial sector, and Services.

Bluegiga Technologies Ltd. known as Bluegiga, is a Finnish wireless technology company based in Espoo, Finland. Founded in 2000, it has since expanded its offices to Atlanta in USA and Hong Kong. Bluegiga has been a member of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group since it was established and joined Continua Health Alliance in Spring 2008. The company joined Wi-Fi Alliance in the beginning of 2012.

A telematic control unit (TCU) in the automobile industry is the embedded system on board a vehicle that wirelessly connects the vehicle to cloud services or other vehicles via V2X standards over a cellular network. The TCU collects telemetry data from the vehicle, such as position, speed, engine data, connectivity quality, etc., from various sub-systems over data and control busses. It may also provide in-vehicle connectivity via Wifi and Bluetooth and implements the eCall function when applicable.

Sequans Communications is a fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops, and markets integrated circuits ("chips") and modules for 4G and 5G cellular IoT devices. The company is based in Paris, France with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Finland and China. The company was founded as a société anonyme in October 2003 by Georges Karam. It originally focused on the WiMAX market and expanded to the LTE market in 2009, dropping WiMAX altogether in 2011. Today the company develops and delivers only LTE chips and modules for the global 5G/4G cellular IoT market. Sequans was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in April 2011. Karam is the company's CEO.

Narrowband Internet of things (NB-IoT) is a low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) radio technology standard developed by 3GPP for cellular network devices and services. The specification was frozen in 3GPP Release 13, in June 2016. Other 3GPP IoT technologies include eMTC and EC-GSM-IoT.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apache Mynewt</span> Real-time operating system

Apache Mynewt is a modular real-time operating system for connected Internet of things (IoT) devices that must operate for long times under power, memory, and storage constraints. It is free and open-source software incubating under the Apache Software Foundation, with source code distributed under the Apache License 2.0, a permissive license that is conducive to commercial adoption of open-source software.

GPS Block IIIF, or GPS III Follow On (GPS IIIF), is the second set of GPS Block III satellites, consisting of up to 22 space vehicles. The United States Air Force began the GPS Block IIIF acquisition effort in 2016. On 14 September 2018, a manufacturing contract with options worth up to $7.2 billion was awarded to Lockheed Martin. The 22 satellites in Block IIIF are projected to start launching in 2027, with launches estimated to last through at least 2037.

The United Kingdom Global Navigation Satellite System was a United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA) research programme which, between May 2018 and September 2020, developed outline proposals for a United Kingdom (UK) owned and operated conventional satellite navigation system, as a British alternative to the European Union (EU) owned and operated Galileo Global Navigation Satellite System. The main reason was to provide a national and independent system, to ensure UK security following its withdrawal from the EU as a result of Brexit. It was fully supported by the Ministry of Defence.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "u-blox Annual Report 2022".
  2. ↑ "Key figures".
  3. ↑ Jain, Sakshi (2023-06-13). "The core idea behind u-blox has always been to explore new business opportunities using module-based solutions with third-party chips- Andreas Thiel". ELE Times. Retrieved 2023-11-17.
  4. ↑ "Well positioned with GPS technology". www.ethlife.ethz.ch. Retrieved 2023-11-17.
  5. ↑ "u-blox announces CEO transition effective 1 January 2023". u-blox. 24 May 2022. Retrieved 2023-04-16.
  6. ↑ "u-blox Taiwan expands into new Taipei offices". iot-now.com. 2016-05-18. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
  7. ↑ "u-blox C027 | Mbed". os.mbed.com. Retrieved 2021-04-09.
  8. ↑ "Chinese car maker chose u-blox GNSS receiver". electronicsweekly.com. 2021-01-14. Retrieved 2023-12-14.
  9. ↑ "U-blox Sharpens Focus on Connected Car Market". insideunmannedsystems.com. 2015-12-09. Retrieved 2023-12-14.
  10. ↑ "SoftBank Corp. and u-blox to Collaborate on Global GNSS Augmentation Services". insidegnss.com. 2021-11-19. Retrieved 2023-12-14.
  11. ↑ "Smallest LTE Cat 4 Module with Global Coverage and 2G/3G Fallback". nasdaq.com. 2022-05-24. Retrieved 2023-12-14.
  12. ↑ "u-blox Introduces F10 Dual-Band GNSS Platform for Superior Urban Positioning Accuracy". insidegnss.com. 2024-03-20. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  13. ↑ "Universally Applicable 4G Cellular Modules in Compact Form Factor Target IoT Usage". epdtonthenet.net. 2024-06-23. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  14. ↑ "u-blox launches new LTE Cat 1bis cellular modules". electronicspecifier.com. 2024-06-18. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  15. ↑ "u-blox acquires connectBlue; adds Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity" (PDF). www.connectblue.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 June 2016. Retrieved 2021-04-09.
  16. ↑ "u-blox acquires automotive short range modules business from Lesswire". u-blox. 2014-12-02. Retrieved 2021-04-09.
  17. ↑ u-blox acquired Rigado's Bluetooth Modules Business
  18. ↑ "Thingstream acquired by u-blox". u-blox. April 2020.
  19. ↑ "u-blox acquires full ownership in Sapcorda Joint Venture". u-blox. 18 March 2021.
  20. ↑ "u-blox and Naventik". itsax.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.