Portwell Targets Imaging Sector with SHB
A system host board (SHB) is aimed at medical imaging equipment makers that are seeking low power consumption. The ROBO-8210VG2AR supports a choice of Intel's latest Core i5 or i7 processor with the Mobile Intel QM57 Express chipset in a PICMG 1.3 standard SHB with DDR3 SDRAM, DVI-I, dual gigabit Ethernet, audio, and USB. It also provides legacy support for Intel Celeron processor P4500. The SHB...
Microsemi unveils 65-nm embedded flash platform
Microsemi has developed a 65-nm embedded flash platform, on which the company’s next generation of flash-based customizable SoCs (systems-on-chip) will be built. The platform was designed by the company formerly known as Actel, who was recently acquired by Microsemi, and renamed as the company’s SoC Products Division. Featuring an expandable four-input look-up table (LUT) architecture...
Electronics and IP: Part III—The Right to Reverse Engineer
Note: This is the third in a six-part series that explores the legality, methodology, and application of reverse engineering as it pertains to the IP life cycle. The goal is to help companies moving into the market for consumer-grade medical devices understand how and why they must protect their intellectual property rights. In the eyes of the law, the act of reverse engineering to obtain know-...
Microrobotics: Are You Up for a Challenge?
From our friends at MPMN: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in collaboration with IEEE, is inviting teams currently engaged in microrobotic, microelectronic, or microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) research to participate in the NIST Mobile Microrobotics Challenge 2011. The competition will be held as part of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation...
Roche Company Selects DNA Electronics to Sequence—You Guessed It—DNA
It was just announced that 454 Life Sciences, a Roche subsidiary, has partnered with DNA Electronics to develop a low-cost, high-throughput, long-read, high-density DNA sequencing system. Looking to build on its current pyrosequencing-based platform, 454 has tapped DNA Electronics to provide IP from its proprietary semiconductor technology portfolio. The goal of the collaboration...
Keep track of your blood
An interesting news story that crossed the wire this week said that Brazilian analog ASSP vendor Ceitec SA claimed to have signed a contract with a Brazilian government-backed company to develop an RFID chip for tracking and managing blood bags to help to ensure traceability and safety of blood management. From what I know about RFID tracking, this is a very good thing. These tracking devices are...
SiOnyx: Bringing Black Silicon to the Mainstream
A start-up called SiOnyx is making the rounds to obtain financing. So far, the Harvard University–spinoff firm has raised $12.5 million and has piqued the interest of Coherent Inc., Crosslink Capital, Vulcan Capital, Polaris Venture Partners, and Harris & Harris. What's interesting is the technology the company has patented, a process commonly referred to as black silicon. In the...
Renesas in the U.S.
During a Japanese-American (i.e., chicken and sushi) press luncheon at DevCon (a little more about it here and here), I learned more about the company's numbers in the United States. For example, by 2012, Renasas wants 60% of its business to come from outside Japan. Also, 80% of the Renesas Electronics America business comes from just 32 customers. In terms of employee makeup, its U.S....
Three Firms Get a Texas-Sized Investment
Texas governor Rick Perry announced earlier this week that the state is investing $9.2 million in three medical device companies (spun out from InCube Labs) to develop and commercialize treatments for iron-deficiency anemia, epilepsy, and atrial fibrillation. The companies are moving from California (doubtful that the state had much money to throw at these start-ups anyway).   “Texas...
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...
Rise of the Machines
Complex imaging systems such as MRI machines may use dozens of specialized processors that need to communicate with each other. iSTOCKPHOTO Modern medicine is a miracle of technology. Diagnostic tests can identify the presence of complex biological markers with remarkable sensitivity. Exotic sensing modalities and sophisticated mathematical techniques for separating information from...
ARM-based processor is aimed at patient monitoring
Software and hardware engineers can easily design medical patient monitoring devices utilizing the DaVinci DM37x video processors from Texas Instruments (TI). The DM3730 and DM3725, with their ARM Cortex-A8 and C64x+ DSP core, offer an imaging and video accelerator (IVA), a 3D graphics processor (DM3730 only), and high-performance peripherals (USB 2.0, SD/MMC) integrated on a system-on-chip (SoC...
Intel Agrees to Broad Restrictions in Settlement
A busy week for Intel—the chip maker not only formed a partnership with a giant in the medical device sector, but it also settled some legal issues. The company has agreed to broad restrictions on its business practices to settle federal charges that it abused its powerful market position. The agreement with the Federal Trade Commission would stop Intel from using predatory-design changes...
Industry Giants Form Joint Venture
GE Healthcare and Intel have created a joint healthcare company focused on telehealth and independent living. The new enterprise will combine GE Healthcare's Home Health Division and Intel's Digital Health Group.   “New models of care delivery are required to address some of the largest issues facing society today, including our aging population, increasing...
Integrated AFEs Find Their Way to Portable Medical Devices
A company has introduced the first in a family of fully integrated analog front ends (AFEs) for portable ECG and EEG equipment as well as patient monitoring and consumer-targeted medical products. The new AFE reduces power consumption and the component count by 95% compared with discrete devices, according to the company. Achieving power efficiencies of 1 mW per channel, the eight-channel, 24-bit...
HDI Circuits May Trump Traditional Flex Circuits
A designer and manufacturer of critical components has become fully HDI (high-density interconnect) capable for flexible circuits. It can provide HDI flexible circuits with blind and buried microvia capability down to 75 µm and trace and space capabilities down to 50 µm. The company says that HDI flex circuits lower cost by reducing layer count and circuit size, and that increased...
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. Note: Technologies like those discussed in this article and others related to medical electronics design will be the central focus of the DesignMED Conference, February 8-10, 2011, in Anaheaim, Ca.   The widespread adoption of general...
Maxtek Speeds Up Prototyping
    Maxtek Components Corp. (Beaverton, OR), a provider of turnkey packaging services for microelectronics, has added rapid prototyping to its suite of services. The company's rapid prototyping services are designed to help manufacturers speed up validation of integrated circuit and package designs as well as speed up the transition to full production. Three service levels are available...
Arc Grants License to Boston Scientific
    Arc International (San Jose) has signed a new license agreement with Boston Scientific. Arc provides consumer intellectual property (IP) to OEMs and semiconductor companies. Its audio and video products enable multimedia content to be captured, shared, and played on a wide range of devices. Boston Scientific will use Arc’s semiconductor IP in ultra-low-power integrated...
NanoWattICs Offers Design Services
  NanoWattICs LLC (Burnaby, BC, Canada) has been formed to provide minimum power consumption analog integrated circuit (IC) design for safety-critical applications. The company's core members have been performing industrial IC designs for medical devices since 1996. In addition to its Canadian office, the company also has a location in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Advances in ICs Pave Way for New Ultrasound Applications
  Originally Published MEM Fall 2008 FROM THE EDITOR   Imaging has been ripe for advances in mixed-signal processing capabilities, either in standard products or as a complete ultrasound receiver front-end. In response, chip makers are changing the way they develop integrated circuits (ICs) for their imaging customers, notes Scott Pavlik. Pavlik is the strategic marketing manager,...
FROM THE EDITOR
  Originally Published MEM Spring 2008   An ultrahigh-frequency circuit could drastically reduce the cost of medical imaging systems—maybe within the next five years. The 410-GHz circuit was developed by researchers at the University of Florida (UF; Gainesville) and Texas Instruments (TI; Dallas). The breakthrough is that it uses complementary metal oxide silicon (CMOS)...
Austriamicrosystems Completes Investment in New Scale
  Austriamicrosystems AG (Unterpremstätten, Austria), a designer and manufacturer of high-performance analog integrated circuits (ICs) for medical applications, and New Scale Technologies Inc. (Victor, NY), a developer and manufacturer of miniature motion systems, completed a Series B preferred equity transaction. Austriamicrosystems has made a $6 million investment in exchange for a 25...
A New PCB Base Material to Support Higher-Power ICs
  THERMAL MANAGEMENT       As the electronics industry makes progress through the introduction of ever faster components, the thermal and structural properties of printed circuit boards (PCBs) play an increasingly key role in device functionality. The PCBs on which electronic components are based must be modified in order to support the high-power integrated circuits (ICs),...
Borrowing from Ultraportable Consumer Products for Medical Electronics Design
  INTEGRATED CIRCUITS       The surge in the incidence of diabetes and heart disease has produced a growing need for accurate and portable home patient-monitoring devices, including better, more-convenient portable devices for monitoring cholesterol, blood glucose levels, and blood pressure. Meanwhile, developing technology is making it possible for the users of such units to...