Qualinx has provided technical details on its QLX3Gx ultra-low-power GNSS chip and a companion developer evaluation kit aimed at battery-constrained IoT, wearable, tracking and mobility devices.
The company positions the QLX3Gx as a market-ready receiver built around its Dragonfly Digital RF architecture, which moves many traditionally analog RF functions into the digital domain to reduce power, size and cost while retaining multi-constellation GNSS performance. The new evaluation kit is intended to let OEMs characterize power consumption and positioning behavior in their own devices before committing to volume designs.
According to Qualinx, the QLX3Gx can operate in a 1 mW GNSS mode, with the same silicon supporting a range of power-versus-performance configurations through software. The chip is designed to track multiple constellations and bands concurrently, and to keep tracking and navigation computation on the chip rather than offloading to cloud services or host processors. It also supports authenticated Galileo signals via OSNMA to improve resilience against spoofing, with the company highlighting use cases in asset tracking, wearables and other edge devices that need long battery life as well as resistance to malicious interference.
Qualinx is also emphasizing supply-chain and manufacturing aspects, noting that the GNSS chip is fabricated at GlobalFoundries’ facility in Dresden, Germany, as part of a broader European semiconductor footprint. A recent €20 million funding round is intended to help move the QLX3Gx family into volume production and expand its availability in international markets.
