Electronics and IP: Part I – Look before you leap
There is an epidemic raging in the U.S. and elsewhere in the industrialized world, an epidemic that is driving explosive growth in a multi-billion-dollar segment of the consumer electronics market. This epidemic is poor health, driven by a sedentary lifestyle, a populace addicted to convenience foods riddled with fat and sugar, and an aging baby boomer generation. The number of people suffering...
High-Reliability Components Market Shows Strength during Downturn and After
The market for high-reliability (hi-rel) components was one of the few growth sectors during the recent downturn. The concentration of military, medical, space, and aerospace—while not recession proof—mostly experienced moderate growth over the past two years. While much of this market involves serving legacy systems, new advances in satellite technology, medical systems, and downhole...
The current crop of processors continue to push the envelope for power-management ICs
There’s an ever-expanding list of power efficient microprocessors designed by Intel, Freescale, Marvell, ARM and many others that provide low power consumption and high performance processing for a wide range of wireless, embedded and networking applications. The original intent of these processors was to enable consumer product OEMs to develop smaller, more cost-effective portable...
Piezo Motors and Actuators: Medical Device Performance
Improvement in the design of medical equipment for better-streamlined functionality and performance is influenced by a number of critical factors. The research, design, modeling, testing, prototyping, and FDA and EU approvals of new mechatronic (mechanical-electronic) devices or iterations usually represents a sizable capital investment of resources well before the equipment goes into serial...
Embedded systems power down
Rick Nelson, Editor-in-Chief Applications ranging from health care to environmental, structural, and spectrum monitoring are driving the need for low-power sensors that will permeate our world, delivering data that enhances our quality of life. EDN estimates that manufacturers will develop and deploy 1000 sensors per person over the next 10 years, amounting to more than 1 trillion sensors. Those...
Diagnosing Medical Design Trends
Connected health, which can be defined as technology-enabled care and the potential for new strategies in healthcare delivery, is driving growth in embedded design applications. Advanced medical devices that require high performance include both large-scale systems as well as hand-held, portable devices.   High-performance COMs give OEMs design flexibility. Some feature 32-nm Intel...
Using a Model-Driven Approach for Developing Medical Device Software
In today’s interconnected world, medical devices are called on to include more innovative features that offer intelligent functions. These new capabilities are typically designed using software; as a result, the software used to create these new features has become increasingly complex. Concurrently, FDA and other regulatory agencies are stepping up pressure on medical device manufacturers...
Improving Performance with Capacitance Laminates
The global electronics industry is exhibiting a widespread interest in embedded passives. This interest can be attributed to three primary benefits of the technology. First, embedded passives have far less parasitic inductance than do discrete components, which enables electrical performance advantages in high-speed digital applications. Second, embedding saves surface real estate, which allows...
Harnessing Ultra-Wideband for Medical Applications
Ultra-wideband (UWB), a wireless transmission technology for high bandwidth (480–1320 Mb/sec) and short range (10–50 m), is gradually seeing more use in medical applications. It was initially developed as technology for the military—only after the U.S. military lifted the secrecy in 1994 did development for commercial purposes begin. Early UWB chip sets were geared toward...
Semiconductors: A Driving Force in Home Healthcare
Semiconductor technology is paving the way for development of increasingly smaller and more-powerful medical devices for use in the home. For patients, the benefits of smaller, portable devices translate into improved access to care, fewer hospital visits, and reduced medical costs. To be effective in the home environment, medical devices must be easy to use and safe even under misuse conditions...
Consumer Trends Fuel Medical Device Innovation
Healthcare and its myriad related social and economic issues continue to take center stage in our daily lives. The healthcare focus is being driven by factors such as aging demographics, the desire to bring healthcare to all, and the acknowledgment of the value of preventive healthcare. New technology leads the response to these concerns, with manufacturers developing products that enable...
Mastering Medical Device Insulation Testing
  The requirement for the electrical safety testing of medical equipment is essential to ensure that the apparatus is safe to operators and patients alike. Several tests are used to assess the integrity of insulation in electrical appliances.   Siemens Healthcare has equipped its nationwide team of mobile service engineers with new electrical safety analyzers to conduct...
Incorporating Static Analysis into the Development Process
Static analysis is a technique used to explore a given software system without actually executing the software.1 Several static analysis tools are available, and each meets slightly different needs. Regardless of the tool chosen, adopting static analysis is a quality-improvement initiative and a deployment plan designed to ensure a successful product rollout. This article describes best practices...
Selective Soldering Benefits Mixed Technology Assemblies
  SOLDERING       This multilayer board shows a design using critical through-hole and SMD technology. Many of these boards cannot withstand typical solder processing temperatures. Modern medical monitoring devices require extremely complex internal electronic assemblies. The availability of highly miniaturized, low-power RF devices and specialized...
EOS versus ESD Misdiagnosis: Charged-Board Events Are a Growing Industry Concern
  Originally Published MEM Fall 2009 ELECTROSTATIC DISCHARGE         Figure 1. CDM versus CBE damage (formerly diagnosed as EOS). A common myth persists that once a device is mounted onto a printed circuit board (PCB), it is significantly less vulnerable to electrostatic discharge (ESD).1–3 However, it has long been known that integrated circuits (ICs)...
Isolating the USB in Medical Systems
This single USB isolator from Analog Devices operates off the 5-V USB supply or system-supplied 3.3-V power using an internal regulator. The widespread adoption of general-purpose personal computers (PCs) is reshaping how medical systems are built. At their core, these systems are PCs that have been configured with specialized software and features tailored to the application. This...
Designing Robust Wireless Sensor Applications
    Originally Published MEM Fall 2009 WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY         An engineer works on a medical project being developed on a platform running both Windows and Linux on a separation kernel and hypervisor. Wireless sensors are quickly making inroads into prehospital, in-hospital, ambulatory, home monitoring, and long-term care settings. These sensors...
Damage-Free Alloy Conversion for Medical Components
  Originally Published MEM Fall 2009 SOLDERING         Sonoscan acoustic images showing delaminations (red) on lead fingers, and type of damage consistent with improper alloy conversion methods. The introduction of the RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) Directive by the European Union (EU) on July 1, 2006, had a significant effect on electronics. It...
Using ATCA Standards to Achieve Smoother System Processes
  Originally Published MEM Fall 2009 IMAGING         An image taken with an inverted geometry angiography system (left) versus real-time image tomosynthesis (right), which enables the user to focus on each structural feature. The Advanced Telecommunication Computing Architecture (ATCA) provides a standard platform and operating environment for the creation of...
Using Ultrasmall System-in-Package Components in Medical Electronics
  Originally Published MEM Fall 2008 MINIATURIZATION       High-density manufacture is essential to keep ahead of an increasingly competitive market. Product size is often a key sales driver and, while greatly influenced by processors and large complex components, packing densities are just as strongly determined by the size and interspacing of passive components. This is...
Protecting Patient-Critical Data in Heart-Monitoring Equipment
  Originally Published MEM Fall 2008 MEMORY       (click to enlarge) Figure 1. Normal waveform (a), and abnormal waveform (b), showing the elevated ST wave segment. One of the most important design considerations of heart monitoring equipment is to ensure that critical data are never lost. In many circumstances, failing to capture and store 100% of...
Integrating RTOS Platforms and Multicore Processors
  Originally Published MEM Fall 2008 OPERATING SYSTEMS       (click to enlarge) Figure 1. A high-capacity blood analyzer from Abbott Labs. The underlying process technologies employed in medical diagnostics applications continue to evolve and drive the need to add different features or processing steps to diagnostic test equipment. At the same time,...
Integrating Built-In Connectors into Medical Electronics
  Originally Published MEM Fall 2008 The medical industry has seen a rapid increase in the use of digital electronics in items such as catheters, defibrillators, and monitors. New medical chip sets are capable of handling multiple input data channels from analytical instruments. These chips also provide a wide range of display information, machine orders, and pump signals. Medical equipment...
Integrating PID Controllers into Automated Processes via Ethernet
  Originally Published MEM Fall 2008 NETWORKING       (click to enlarge) Integration of Ethernet provides additional functionality in medical devices. Ethernet communications is rapidly gaining popularity in industrial applications, including medical, because it enables the real-time exchange of information between processing equipment and companies'...
Computer-on-Modules: Standardized Processing for Medical Electronics
  SYSTEMS DESIGN       Computer-on-modules, as shown here, provide standardized form and function. With ever-increasing speed requirements for modern processors and system buses, designing a cpu-based board from the ground up has become a daunting challenge for OEMs. Often, OEMs' resources would be better served by focusing on their core competencies and product...