FEATURE MEDICAL ELECTRONICS m-Health: The vital link
Jakob Nielsen, senior manager, consumer health product line at ON Semiconductor, explores the latest solutions being developed to address the technical challenges of patient monitoring applications, through semi-customisable SIP devices
A
report published by industry analysts Allied Market Research has predicted that the
global m-Health market will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33.5% between now and the end of the decade. The benefits of m-Health are widely recognised. Via such technology long term conditions can be monitored, or the progression of recovery from treatment/surgery charted, from the patient’s home - whereas previously this would have had to be carried out at a point-of-care facility (such as a hospital, clinic, etc.). m-Health means that doctors and clinicians can get access to the accurate, comprehensive data they need without requiring patients to travel - thereby minimising inconvenience. It is not just preferable for patients though. With an aging population to deal with and often very limited available resources, it is advantageous to medical professionals too. m-Health presents them with a highly effective method by which to gather vital patient information, while reducing the time allocated to consultations. All manner of different items of medical
monitoring equipment are now seeing increasing prevalence. These include heart rate monitors, glucose monitors, electrocardiogram analysers, etc. In order for the opportunities that m-Health offers to be fully exploited, medical equipment manufacturers need to be supported by their technology partners. The remote monitoring devices that will form the basis of m-Health need to be: 1. Power efficient - With the objective of maintaining the battery life over as long a period of time as possible 2. Compact - So that patients are not put
30 MAY 2016 | ELECTRONICS
under any discomfort while wearing the monitoring equipment 3. Cost effective - In order that they can hit attractive price points that will encourage greater market traction 4. Future proof - As additional functionality may need to be included, but without costly alterations to the design being called for These criteria place sizeable pressure on
semiconductor manufacturers serving the medical sector. In the past they would have offered their customers one of the following solutions when it came to providing the IC technology necessary for implementing monitoring/sensing systems: 1. Combine together a number of standard discretecomponents such as amplifier ICs, data conversion ICs & power management ICs
2. Look to implement a full custom system- on-chip (SoC) solution
Both of these distinct options have major
drawbacks of course. A discrete solution, as it consists of off-the-shelf components, will not be as optimised for the particular function it has been tasked with. This means that it will not be able to attain the desired performance benchmarks. Furthermore, discrete solutions will take up a relatively large area of board real estate and, in addition, will require a sizeable amount of power. Conversely, a custom solution will be able to deliver elevated performance levels, as well as taking up minimal space on the PCB and having a markedly lower power consumption, but it will come with a far longer development cycle, heavy upfront investment, plus a certain degree of risk (as securing the unit volumes
Figure 1:
The Struix SiP from ON Semiconductor
needed to pay for the initial outlay may prove difficult). This has left medical design teams with a serious dilemma - either trade off system performance or put up with higher costs. In response to this issue, forward- thinking semiconductor manufacturers have started to look for a middle way - where the benefits of discrete solutions with their quick turnaround times and lower costs can be merged together with the higher integration of custom SoC solutions. By employing highly advanced die stacking techniques, ON Semiconductor has been able to tackle the problem head on. The company has introduced a multi-die system-in- package (SiP) solution that comprises the numerous key elements stipulated by portable medical system design. Its Struix product offering includes a microcontroller, a custom- designed analogue front-end (AFE) and a 32- bit application specific standard product (ASSP) stacked upon one another inside a compact 6mm by 6mm QFN package. The Struix’ ULPMC10 microcontroller is able
to process acquired data via its 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 core, which is capable of running at frequencies up to 30MHz. It has 512kBytes on-chip Flash memory and 24kBytes of SRAM available, on to which critical program and user data can be stored. It also incorporates a 12-bit ADC with three multiplexed inputs, a real-time clock, a phase-locked-loop and a temperature sensor. Its ultra-low dynamic and static power consumption mean that this it is highly suited to battery-powered, portable operation - something that patient monitoring mandates. The microcontroller only draws 200µA/MHz while in operation and less than 500nA when in standby mode. The flexibility of this solution stems from its microcontroller element. It can easily be updated in the future, without the AFE being effected, by replacing this element with next generation microcontrollers as these emerge. It seems certain that, in the coming years,
technology is destined to have a much greater impact on the way we approach healthcare. Through remote monitoring it will be possible to improve patients’ quality of life. To accomplish this, medical equipment manufacturers must be furnished with more sophisticated, power efficient semiconductor solutions that allow them to overcome the engineering and economical obstacles they face.
ON Semiconductor
www.onsemi.com T: 01628 244326
/ ELECTRONICS
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