The demand for home health management has exploded. How can GigaDevice Innovation GD32 help customers win?

Market research data shows that the global pulse oximeter market sales will reach US$2.1 billion in 2021, and are expected to reach US$3.6 billion in 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 7.5% (2022-2028). Expanding to the entire segment, the overall size of my country's household medical device retail market will reach 32.7 billion yuan in 2022, an increase of nearly 50% from the overall size before the epidemic. In the post-epidemic era, quarterly sales of household medical devices fluctuate around 8 billion yuan.

The sales volume of health management products will continue to rise in the coming years, which will also bring long-term growth points to the MCU market. Analysts’ continued optimism about MCU in this segment in the next few years also confirms the above analysis. In Omdia's latest industry analysis report, China's medical electronics industry will bring market sales of US$156 million to MCU manufacturers in 2022. Looking forward, MCU sales are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.5% and will reach US$204 million by 2026, accounting for approximately 27% of the global market and leading the growth rate of the global market.

▲ China vs global medical electronics market-annual MCU revenue

Source: Omdia

Taking the finger-clip pulse oximeter as an example, although its market size continues to grow, its development still faces many challenges. At present, the domestic oximeter market is facing problems such as serious product homogeneity, few products with medical-grade monitoring accuracy, and low cost performance. It is urgent to find a way to break the situation. Applicability, monitoring accuracy, sports performance, and cost control have become important indicators for inspecting finger-clip oximeter R&D and production companies.

Looking around the world, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) technology and the health management field continues to deepen, and application scenarios continue to expand, such as voice entry of medical records, medical image-assisted diagnosis, drug research and development, surgical robots, personal health big data intelligent analysis, etc., all are AI Technology’s current popular application areas. As the computing power of MCUs continues to increase, integrating artificial intelligence on MCUs and using only one chip to achieve end-side deployment is becoming a new application trend.

Driven by long-tail demand and continuous innovation, the health management industry chain has become a top priority in finding relevant MCU suppliers that are cost-effective, stable and reliable, and have guaranteed supply.

In the past few years, GigaDevice's GD32 series MCUs have continued to provide stable supplies to end customers of health management products, providing a strong guarantee for the fight against the epidemic and achieving a high market share. The cumulative shipment data of the GD32E230 series of value-for-money MCUs has exceeded 200 million units , and is widely used in blood oximeters, forehead thermometers, virus detectors, vaccine incubators, etc.; the GD32F450/470 series of high-performance MCUs are widely used in thermal imaging instruments, oxygen concentrators, ventilators, etc., which are well recognized by the industry and have won many awards. It has won many industry awards including "China Chip's Outstanding Anti-epidemic Support Products", "China Chip's Excellent Market Performance", and "Global Electronics Achievement Award".

Blood oxygen saturation (SpO ₂ ) is the concentration of blood oxygen in the blood and is an important physiological parameter of respiratory circulation. In the "New Coronavirus Pneumonia Diagnosis and Treatment Plan (Trial Ninth Edition)", relevant treatment measures mentioned, "Closely monitor vital signs, especially finger oxygen saturation at rest and after activity, etc."; many experts are conducting Disease popularization has also pointed out: "Oxygen saturation below 93% is dangerous." Hypoxia can cause damage to the body's organs. In particular, we need to be wary of "silent hypoxia" in the elderly. This means that whether you need to go to the hospital for medical treatment or whether it develops into severe disease, blood oxygen indicators have become the focus. Moreover, home oximeters, especially finger-clip oximeters, have become the focus of people's attention because they are portable, convenient and affordable.

The currently popular finger-clip photoelectric sensor method for measuring blood oxygen. When measuring, you only need to put the sensor on a person's finger, and then process the collected signal and transmit it to the display host computer to observe the blood oxygen saturation of the human body. Condition.

The oxygen content in the blood can be expressed by the physiological parameter blood oxygen saturation (SpO ₂ ). Blood oxygen saturation (SpO ₂ ) is the percentage of the capacity of oxyhemoglobin (HbO ₂ ) in the blood to the capacity of all bindable hemoglobin (HbO ₂ +Hb), that is, oxyhemoglobin and reduced hemoglobin, that is

For light of the same wavelength or light of different wavelengths, there is a big difference in the light absorption of oxyhemoglobin (HbO ₂ ) and reduced hemoglobin (Hb), and in the near-infrared region, their light absorption has unique differences. Absorption peak; in blood circulation, the blood content in arteries changes with the beating of the pulse, which means that the optical path of light transmitted through the blood also changes, and the amount of light absorption by arterial blood changes with the optical path changes with the change of the pulse wave, from which it can be deduced that the signal intensity output by the blood oxygen probe changes with the change of the pulse wave, and then the pulse oximeter saturation is deduced according to the Lambert-Beer law.

Using GD32E230C8T6 as the main control MCU, it is China's first general-purpose microcontroller product based on the new Arm® Cortex®-M23 core, replacing and improving traditional 8-bit and 16-bit MCUs, and replacing Cortex-M0/M0+ products, bringing A more cost-effective solution. This series of MCUs not only has value-for-money high-speed processing capabilities, but also provides rich interface resources to enhance connectivity.

The entire oximeter is powered by 2 AAA batteries. The internal ADC can monitor the battery power in real time. Powering on and setting parameters are completed with one button. The buzzer is used for power-on prompts and alarm prompts. The transmitter tube is driven by PWM, and the signal of the receiver tube is sampled by ADC. OLED is connected to the main control through the SPI interface and is used to display various parameters and waveform information.

If the essential home oximeter is an early warning, then the oxygen concentrator has entered the ranks of auxiliary treatment. If discomfort symptoms such as dyspnea and hypoxemia occur, they can be relieved by inhaling oxygen. At this time, the oxygen concentrator is of certain help to patients who need oxygen, such as the elderly with underlying diseases.

Relevant information shows that oxygen concentrators are used by middle-aged and elderly people, pregnant women, special patients, etc., with capacities ranging from 1L to 3L and 5L to 10L. People with varying degrees of hypoxia can try to use an oxygen concentrator after consulting a doctor. Small volumes of 1-3L are health-care types (household type). They improve the body's oxygen supply, eliminate fatigue, and restore body functions by supplying oxygen. They are suitable for some middle-aged and elderly people who have symptoms of hypoxia, pregnant women, and people with poor physical fitness. , athletes, heavy manual workers and mental consumers. If you travel to plateau, a portable oxygen concentrator can also relieve the discomfort caused by high altitude sickness.

Most of the household oxygen concentrators currently on the market are molecular sieve oxygen concentrators, which are characterized by low cost, easy use, flexible movement, and safe portability.

The working principle of molecular sieve oxygen generator is pressure swing adsorption (PSA) technology and desorption technology. When working, it will adsorb nitrogen in the air and collect the remaining oxygen in the air. After purification, it becomes high-concentration oxygen, and then the oxygen is supplied to the patient through an oxygen suction tube. The whole process is a periodic and dynamic cycle, and the molecular sieve is not consumed.

MCU mainly plays a control and display role in the oxygen concentrator. The GD32F303 series of mainstream MCUs provide a maximum frequency of 120MHz, large-capacity storage, multiple advanced timers and high-precision ADC, LCD screen interfaces and rich communication interfaces, which can meet the control, data collection, communication and display of mainstream oxygen concentrators. Functional Requirements. For oxygen concentrator products with higher performance requirements, it is recommended to use the GD32F4 series of high-performance MCUs, which have a working frequency of up to 240MHz and integrates a TFT LCD controller and a hardware graphics accelerator IPA. In addition to providing more powerful processing efficiency, it also Can meet high-resolution HMI display function.

A forehead thermometer is an infrared thermometer. Different from traditional oral and armpit contact thermometers, it is designed to measure the human body's forehead temperature. The operation is simple, efficient and convenient. It has no laser points and will not cause potential damage to the eyes. It does not need to come into contact with human skin and can avoid cross-infection. It can realize temperature measurement with one button and one second.

Forehead thermometers are generally equipped with a display screen to display temperature, past test records and other information. Through the buttons, you can set the mode, collect the temperature, query the records, etc. In addition, some will also be equipped with sound and light alarm prompt functions. The most critical components on the forehead thermometer are the main control MCU and the temperature measurement sensor.

When the infrared forehead thermometer is aligned with and close to the measured object to the effective distance detected by the digital proximity sensor, press the power/measurement button and hold it for a few seconds, then the infrared sensor module inside the infrared forehead thermometer will collect the temperature. , and converted into electrical signals, and then the electrical signals are converted into digital signals, and then transmitted to the MCU through the communication interface.

The MCU collects the current ambient temperature through a digital temperature sensor, performs corresponding temperature compensation processing on the transmitted temperature digital signal, and stores the corrected temperature as the current record number to display the corresponding OLED or LCD screen. If the body temperature is abnormal, it will also perform "Beep, beep, beep, beep" alarm, and finally the voice broadcasts the current temperature.

Taking a non-contact infrared forehead thermometer as an example, it usually consists of a low-power, high-security GD32E230 series MCU, a power module, a button module, an infrared sensor module, an OLED or LCD display module, a voice module or a speaker.

Based on GD32E230K8U6 as the main control MCU, it has the characteristics of high cost performance, large storage capacity, high security, low power consumption, and rich interfaces. Forehead thermometer products on the market generally use LCD segment screens. The OLED screen is driven by GD32E230, and the display effect is more delicate. The zero-power shutdown design can extend the service life of the battery and enhance the practicality of the product.

As the world's leading brand of 32-bit microcontrollers, GigaDevice Innovation GD32 has the advantages of high quality, high reliability, low cost and low power consumption in product design. It is manufactured using the industry's advanced foundry technology and adopts multiple Certified factories and production lines are supplied at the same time. On the premise of ensuring product consistency and reliability, GD32 has sufficient flexible production capacity and stable supply guarantee, and also provides a one-stop "main control chip + algorithm + solution" We provide mass production services, save development time and reduce cost investment, and work together with partners to provide support to users.