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Due to the aging of the population, the demand for home medical and health care equipment continues to expand. According to data from the World Health Organization, the population over 60 years old reached 650 million in 2006, and this number is expected to reach 1.2 billion in 2025. At present, semiconductor development is mainly focused on household and handheld consumer electronic devices in the entertainment and communications fields.
Such design experience and even certain devices are very useful for the implementation of a new generation of home healthcare equipment. When this technology is combined with high-performance instrumentation-level sensors and data acquisition devices, the final product can be built into a medical-level system and easily deployed at home. Precision semiconductor products include reliable high-performance sensors, amplifiers and data converters, which are used to extract precision signals and convert them into digital quantities; and embedded processors, which are used to perform complex analysis on the collected signals.
sensor
The current diagnostic measurement system is based on an integrated solution that monitors specific target substances that are clinically relevant. The measurement system contains a detection layer that is used to identify the target substance and generate a biochemical signal that can be measured by the sensor. An example of this technology is blood glucose detection. The enzyme on the glucose test strip selectively converts glucose into a measurable substance. During this process, the electrons produced are proportional to the level of glucose.
These electronics can be measured using current-based electricity meters. Silicon sensors include capacitance-to-digital converters, impedance-digital converters, LED-based photonics, photodiodes, MEMS-based motion sensors (used to measure acceleration, gravity, and tilt), and gyro sensors for rotation detection.
Data converter
The signal processing module is often used in conjunction with a high-precision amplifier to drive the sensor and perform digital conversion. Products such as ADC can realize low-power, high-precision systems. Successive approximation registers (SAR) and sigma-delta converters are very suitable for the resolution and measurement signal bandwidth required by these systems.
Embedded processing and wireless communication
To provide compact, battery-powered medical diagnostic and monitoring applications outside the clinical environment, high-performance, low-power, low-cost, and safe embedded processing is required. The embedded processor analyzes the collected signal, first verifies the quality and converts the signal into medically usable information, and then transmits the result to the patient in a usable format while controlling the device.
The processor can also be used to manage wireless (or wired) connections in order to transmit patient data to the physician. It is not difficult to imagine that a watch-type device can be designed to monitor vital signs in a non-invasive manner. If developers want to improve performance on the basis of the lowest system cost and power consumption, they can consider fusing DSP and microcontrollers, such as ADI’s Blackfin. ADI’s recently launched radio SoC combines data conversion, RF and 32-bit processing capabilities to provide high-efficiency wireless connections.
ADuCRF101 (see Figure 1) is very suitable for medical applications that must quickly collect, measure, and send data in a high-noise environment without allowing a large amount of battery power to be consumed. For example, the wireless Holter or telemetry monitor worn by the patient must be very small, capable of long-term battery operation with low power consumption, and have a high enough performance level to continuously transmit the patient’s vital signs. ADuCRF101 supports these applications and can also perform patient monitoring outside the hospital environment.
Existing home healthcare equipment
Examples of home healthcare equipment include Wholter, a night lung monitor, and Wheezometer, a personal asthma assessment device, both of which were developed by the Israeli company Karmelsonix. Wholter and Wheezometer meet the needs of 48 million asthma patients worldwide to assess and control their illnesses, whereas in the past patients could only get treatment through surgery or hospitalization.
An effective asthma assessment must be immediate and accurate in order to provide a basis for appropriate medical measures. In the past, only spirometers in hospitals or operating rooms had such high reliability. In order to transfer this medical technology from the hospital to the home, Karmelsonix uses ADI’s Blackfin DSP and other sophisticated signal processing devices to ensure that asthma patients can obtain accurate and reliable “wheezing rate” (an important indicator of asthma attacks) assessment information.
Wheezometer uses a proprietary non-invasive electro-pulmonary acoustic sensor array to capture the signal through the four-channel low-noise operational amplifier AD8608, and then digitally convert the signal through the six-channel simultaneous sampling 16-bit ADC AD7656. Then feed this signal into ADSP-BF524 for characteristic analysis. The ADM708 voltage monitor ensures that the circuit is operating at the correct signal and power levels.
This signal chain combines Karmelsonix’s design experience and software to achieve medical standard performance targets whether at home or on the way to a doctor. Many home healthcare equipment are simpler, but are equally important for saving lives and preventing accidents. As shown in the figure, emergency personnel can use ZOLL Medical’s PocketCPR to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for heart patients.
The device can measure the strength of chest compressions, provide auditory and visual feedback for emergency personnel, and facilitate timely adjustment of strength and frequency. PocketCPR uses the accelerometer ADXL311 to accurately measure the motion state of the device in the hands of emergency personnel. A simpler application is the FallSaver patch, which can be attached to the patient’s thigh for up to two weeks to continuously monitor the patient’s activity.
The device uses ADXL323 and ADXL335 accelerometers to provide motion information in a digital format, allowing rapid analysis of motion patterns.
With the increasing demand for home medical equipment, the system requirements for medical equipment designers are becoming more and more complex and demanding. Not only must the size be reduced and the ease of use must be improved, but also the performance of the next generation of portable medical equipment must be improved. . These new system-level requirements mean that analog semiconductor manufacturers have to face the challenge of developing building blocks for next-generation products.
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