Complies with the 400 MHz-band international standard while consuming 1/10th the power of previous models, lightening the burden on patients who use sensors

Kawasaki, Japan, and Eindhoven, The Netherlands, February 12, 2014 – Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. and imec Holst Centre today announced that they have developed a wireless transceiver circuit for use in body area networks (BAN) for medical applications that adheres to the 400 MHz-band international standard.

While the subject of high expectations for medical applications, wireless monitoring of brainwaves or other vital signs has in the past required over a dozen milliwatts (mW) of electric power. Now, however, by optimizing the architecture and circuitry, Fujitsu Laboratories and imec Holst Centre have succeeded in reducing the electric power requirements of wireless transceiver front-ends, to just 1.6 mW when receiving data and 1.8 mW when transmitting.

This technology extends by approximately ten-fold the battery life of conventional sensor products used for patient monitoring. This cuts the frequency of battery replacement or recharges, lightens the burden on patients, and increases the work efficiency of medical practitioners.

Based on this joint research into wireless transceiver technology, Fujitsu Laboratories plans to apply it to non-medical uses, as well, such as to the monitoring of societal infrastructure, thereby further enhancing network front-end interface technologies.

Details of this technology were announced at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference 2014 (ISSCC 2014), which opened February 9 in San Francisco (ISSCC Presentation 9.7)

Background
In the field of healthcare and medicine, BAN have attracted attention for their potential application in collecting patient-monitoring data via a wireless network of sensors placed on the patient’s body (Figure 1). The various sensor nodes that make up the BAN all need battery power, and to make the system as convenient as possible for both the patient and medical practitioners, there is a need to extend battery run-times so the required frequency of battery replacement or recharging is held to a bare minimum.

lees meer en zie tekst plaatjes op
http://www2.imec.be/be_nl/pers/persberichten/fujitsu2014.html

zeker de moeite waard(red.).

lees ook
Imec and Holst Centre Demonstrate Low-Power ECG-Acquisition Chip at ISSCC2014
13/2/2014
Chip Signals Important Achievement in Enabling Next-Generation Implantable Cardiac Monitoring Solutions

San Francisco – Feb. 12, 2014 – At this week’s International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC2014), imec and Holst Centre, together with Olympus, demonstrated a low-power single channel implantable electrocardiography (ECG) acquisition chip with analog feature extraction, which enables precise monitoring of the signal activity in a selected frequency band.

Leadless Pacemakers with ultra-small size and ultra-low power consumption are emerging, improving analysis and clinical research of the intra-cardiac rhythm, and as a result, improving patients’ quality of life.

The new low-power ECG acquisition chip advances the state-of-the-art by consuming only 680nA when all features are active, and also provides competitive performance, such as input SNR>70dB, CMRR >90dB, PSRR >80dB without any external passive components.

By equipping an ultra-low power analog feature extractor, the new chip is capable of assisting digital signal processor platforms for the implementation of low-power heartbeat detection algorithms.

Imec’s portfolio on integrated circuits for implantable cardiac monitoring applications is available for licensing. It also includes a low-power ASIC for intra-cardiac ventricular fibrillation detection, featuring best-in-class three low-power cardiac signal readout channel, one bio-impedance measurement channel, and low-latency beat detection feature, all with 20µW power dissipation (ISSCC2013).