The latest low-cost medical testing and monitoring technology solutions

In recent years, China has built or is about to build a huge number of public hospitals, while the number of private hospitals is also growing rapidly. The industry usually uses the "patient drug and medical equipment consumption ratio" indicator to measure the level of medical care and services in a region. This value is generally 1:1 in developed countries, that is, the money doctors spend on prescribing drugs to patients is roughly equivalent to the cost of using equipment for inspection, monitoring and prevention; while in China, it is between 4:1 and 5:1, which means that most of the domestic patients' expenses are spent on buying drugs. This also shows from one aspect that there is still a lot of room for growth in domestic medical equipment.

The health and medical industry is an industry that governments of various countries have supported and invested in for a long time. With the improvement of people's living standards, health and medical services have become a hot spot in China, and more and more capital has begun to pay attention to this industry. In addition, the trend of China's aging population is becoming more and more obvious, and the market size of medical electronic equipment will be further expanded. However, the medical equipment industry gives people the impression that the cost of purchasing medical equipment is expensive, and high-end products are basically monopolized by foreign manufacturers such as GE and Philips. It is difficult for domestic manufacturers to independently develop medical equipment to enter the high-end market. So how can Chinese companies use the progress of science and technology and technological innovation to design medical electronic equipment with lower cost, higher precision, and more needs?

This article interviews several semiconductor and sensor technology manufacturers to bring the latest technologies in this area to engineer readers.

More integrated sensor solutions

According to Wang Sheng, Asia Pacific Marketing Director of Analog Devices' Healthcare Division, in terms of vital sign signal monitoring, ADI's products and solutions have solved the most core problems of users and have obtained very considerable market returns, including professional monitoring products used in hospitals and wearable products for personal consumption. Specifically, ADI has made continuous investments in optoelectronic technology, physiological impedance measurement, physiological potential acquisition, temperature, motion status monitoring, and environmental-related (such as gas, CO2, and ultraviolet monitoring) and its product solutions have been recognized in the market.

Figure 1: Wang Sheng, Asia Pacific Marketing Director of ADI’s Healthcare Division.

He took ADI's photoelectric method for measuring physiological signs as an example, saying that ADI's ADPD series sensors and signal processing solutions are being designed and used by almost all major brand customers. For example, ADPD142, APD153, ADPD144 and ADPD174 are the most integrated (photodiode + LED + analog front-end acquisition AFE + LED driver + ambient light suppression, etc., and the output is the digital quantity of I2C) on the market, and are also the smallest, lowest power consumption (very flexible configuration), best performance (both in size and power consumption), and very mature solutions (large quantities have already been shipped). It can be used for diagnostic products and also for the collection of relevant vital signs signals of consumer products, such as heart rate, blood oxygen content, etc. ADPD174GGI can greatly simplify the challenges of system-level optical structure design, solve the problem of internal ambient light interference, etc., and thus ensure the consistency of the final product and the cost and efficiency of the production process. At present, this module product has been adopted by world-renowned wearable manufacturers and has been shipped in large quantities.

Wang Sheng specifically mentioned ADI's latest generation of photoelectric measurement module product ADPD188, which was just put into mass production in June. It can optimize this type of application in terms of power consumption, performance, ease of design, simplification of customers' production line processes, and cost.

ams, a semiconductor design and manufacturing company specializing in sensors, covers the field of medical electronic equipment, from image sensors for large CT equipment to image sensors as small as an ant head that can be used in endoscopes. Li Minghao, senior application engineer in the field of AIM (Automotive, Industrial and Medical) of ams Semiconductor, specifically introduced the company's ultra-small, digital CMOS image sensor Naneye 2D/3D.

Li Minghao believes that with the continuous improvement of medical standards, non-invasive examinations and surgeries are becoming more and more popular. For example, organs such as the kidneys, heart, lungs, and larynx have internal circulation channels. The operating doctor can use these internal channels to send a urethroscope or bronchoscope to the suspected lesion point, and use the information obtained by the image sensor or the surgical device in the endoscope for sampling and analysis to determine whether there is a lesion. Such examinations and surgeries can greatly reduce the operation time, reduce the patient's pain and postoperative recovery time. Now many minimally invasive surgeries are also beginning to use endoscopic technology. Of course, the most common endoscopic examinations are the stomach and intestines. But unlike gastrointestinal examinations, endoscopic examinations such as the kidney have stringent requirements on the size of the endoscope, especially the diameter.

Figure 2: ams' Naneye 2D is a miniature image sensor developed specifically for miniature endoscopes.

According to Li Minghao, the main features of Naneye 2D are: the size is only 1mm◊1mm◊1.6mm (including the built-in lens), with 250◊250 pixels; it also has welded connecting wires up to 3 meters long to facilitate customers' assembly and improve the final product yield; it has 5 built-in lenses with different viewing angles and focal lengths to choose from; it has a built-in 10-bit ADC conversion circuit and transmits signals via LVDS; the sensor part does not require any peripherals, which is suitable for miniaturized design requirements.

What’s even more incredible is that ams also provides Naneye 3D products, which are two Naneyes combined side by side to achieve a stereoscopic visual effect.

The Naneye with connecting harness, optical fiber for light guide and micro surgical tools are packaged together with an insulating sleeve to form an extremely fine endoscope probe. The light source usually used for photographing objects is introduced from the light emitting device in the control box by optical fiber, which can mainly reduce the diameter of the front end of the probe and also reduce the temperature of the front end to prevent burns to human tissue. Of course, some customers want to use LED lighting directly at the front end, and ams can also provide Naneye products with LED.

Li Minghao proudly stated that compared with existing micro-endoscope competitors, the integrated connection harness and built-in ADC sampling circuit solutions provided by AMS have reduced the cost of peripheral circuits and improved the production yield. At the same time, digital products have greatly improved the signal-to-noise ratio of images.

He also revealed that ams will launch a smaller Naneye XS product in the near future, which will measure only 0.65mm◊0.65mm.

Naneye products have been widely used in yicixing urethral endoscopes and other products.

Liu Wei, Product Marketing Manager of Temperature and Pressure Sensors of TDK Group EPCOS Greater China, introduced the application of TDK pressure sensors in medical equipment. He said, "TDK's diffused silicon pressure sensors can greatly improve the precision and accuracy of pressure measurement. After precise temperature compensation, the accuracy of measurement at different temperatures can be ensured. It can help customers improve the long-term reliability of their products and reduce the occurrence of failures and maintenance rates."

At present, major medical equipment manufacturers in Europe and China have adopted TDK's pressure sensors, which are widely used in various gas and liquid pressure measurement equipment. For example, the absolute pressure and relative pressure sensors used in respiratory anesthesia machines can measure the fluid pressure of biochemical analyzers, and have the characteristics of high detection accuracy (deviation <0.1%), wide measurement range (up to 40bar), and wide operating temperature range (0~65℃). In addition, they have strong anti-electromagnetic interference (EMI) capabilities and stable and reliable performance, so their service life can reach up to ten years.

In addition, the editor of Electronic Engineering Times has seen the "blood flow sensor" exhibited by Kyocera at the exhibition, which is also very interesting. The size of the blood flow sensor module is very small, only 3.2mm◊1.6mm◊0.9mm, which looks very suitable for use in wearable devices or integration into mobile devices.

Kyocera staff introduced that this low-power, small-size blood flow sensor uses the optical Doppler effect to detect the blood flow status of subcutaneous tissue. It can determine whether the user is dehydrated or has heat stroke based on the detection data, and detect changes in blood pressure. However, Kyocera staff also said that the sensor can provide front-end detection data, but the analysis results of the subsequent data need to be cooperated with a third party. After all, drawing results based on data is a profession in the medical or health care field, and semiconductor companies usually cooperate with third parties.

It is said that this blood flow detection sensor can be used in special headphones to monitor some physiological indicators of the human body at any time.

Lower cost medical imaging solutions

Wang Sheng of ADI told EE Times that the company focuses on two types of applications in the inspection and monitoring of medical electronics, namely medical imaging detection and vital sign signal monitoring. "The products and technologies we promote will also focus on these two areas."

Figure 3: Examples of ADI’s main medical imaging products and solutions.

According to Wang Sheng, the ADAS1131 launched by ADI is a 256-channel, 24-bit current-to-digital converter module suitable for multi-channel, low-current data acquisition in medical CT (computed tomography), industrial and security scanners, and photodiode sensor applications. The main technical features of ADAS1131 include: synchronous sampling without charge loss and dead time; ultra-low noise; configurable current input range; integrated high-speed ADC with 2 configurable sampling rates, internal buffer, decoupling and bypass capacitors for data acquisition; 3mW power consumption per channel; LVDS/CMOS serial interface; on-chip temperature sensor. ADAS1131 adopts a 15mm◊15mm 324-pin flat SiP BGA package, which contains decoupling capacitors for power supply and reference voltage. The ball grid array is an 18◊18 full array, with a solder ball pitch of 0.8mm and a solder ball diameter of 0.45mm. The 0.8mm solder ball pitch allows more wiring between pins, thereby reducing many laser holes and buried holes, improving the yield and reliability of PCBs, and thus reducing costs.

The latest generation ADAS1135 has been launched, which has greatly improved the main performance indicators and is package compatible with ADAS1131, so users can easily upgrade the hardware system and adopt the latest technology in new designs. At the same time, the 128-channel multi-version ADAS1134 was launched.

In terms of digital X-ray products, its ADAS1256 COF (Chip-On-Flex) 256-channel integrated front-end module, in addition to single-chip integration of 256 channels, 16-bit resolution, 22us line scanning speed and other performance, the ADAS1256 COF solution also provides 9 power consumption modes. Because power consumption and noise cannot meet the minimum requirements at the same time, the power consumption mode switching function allows users to choose the best power consumption and noise mode to meet the current needs. For patients, the most concerned is the radiation dose. Because when doing various examinations, X-rays can also cause harm to the patient's own province. For this, the ADAS1256 COF solution reduces the noise of the detector itself, so when the X-ray dose is very small, the low-noise detector can also receive and clearly present the image.

"In our latest roadmap product planning, products that further optimize speed and power consumption, as well as integrate more system-level functions, will soon be available and have been actually tested and finalized for product development among important customers in the industry," Wang Sheng pointed out.

In terms of vital sign signal monitoring, ADI has the ADPD series of products mentioned above.

In the field of portable medical electronics for hospitals and home use, ADI has a series of innovative products and solutions. For example, the ADuCM350, a high-precision, low-power on-chip meter that supports a variety of portable healthcare fields, has achieved milestone progress in several representative major customers at home and abroad.

In addition, in the field of motion detection, ADI has a series of innovative products and solutions. The breakthrough ultra-low power 3-axis digital MEMS product ADXL362 consumes only 300 nA of power in motion detection wake-up mode. Its ultra-low power consumption feature is an ideal solution for wearable motion monitoring devices.

You Liyin, general manager of Indy International's mainland subsidiary, introduced Indy's layout in medical electronics. He pointed out that Indy's CF/SD card and embedded memory module solutions have been adopted in equipment such as monitors, ultrasound, blood cell analyzers and medical tablets. At present, a series of complete solutions have been launched, including DDR4 ECC/RDIMM, M.2, NVME and various server boot disks (for example: SATADOM) and other storage solutions, which can be used in the above-mentioned mass storage, edge computing and other applications, for 365 days/24 hours high-speed operation, low voltage power saving environment, and meet the compatibility and performance requirements of server hyper-converged system operation. In addition, various tailor-made solutions have been launched according to the special customized requirements of medical industry customers.

He particularly mentioned Aetina, a subsidiary of Innodisk Group, which provides medical-specific solutions for medical professional imaging needs, including MXM GPU modules and the recently popular Nvidia TX1/TX2 artificial intelligence platform, which provides AIoT solutions for medical customers.

Finally, he also introduced the iCAP intelligent management software they launched this year, which allows industry customers to easily grasp the status of on-site equipment in equipment management. Taking the medical industry application as an example, it can realize the networking of equipment on different floors in the hospital. Through the iCAP software, you can grasp the real-time information of system operation status, storage device life, etc., so as to respond to the work schedule of on-site replacement of equipment at the end of its life in advance, reduce the dispatch of personnel and equipment in case of equipment emergencies, and thus reduce personnel costs and improve equipment utilization.

Figure 4: You Liyin, general manager of Indy International's mainland subsidiary.

Summarize

Wang Sheng concluded that ADI is very optimistic about the technology and business prospects in the field of medical electronics, and will continue to pay strategic attention to it, actively participate in relevant discussions and invest in related technology and product development. ADI hopes to help end patients (or users) and doctors solve the problems they face, such as measurement accuracy, ease of use, cost and reliability, through its continuous investment and together with its customers. It also hopes that with the unremitting efforts of our customers, we can break through the boundaries of existing product forms in terms of business models and product application forms, and make our own industry contributions in medical electronics applications to solve the challenges we all face, such as "difficulty and high cost of seeing a doctor", "distribution and layout of medical resources", "tiered diagnosis and treatment" and "improvement of primary medical facilities".

Among medical electronic devices, traditional expensive medical testing equipment is not only the largest proportion of medical electronic equipment in the medical electronics market, but also an important reason for the huge cost of national medical insurance and patient treatment. Semiconductor manufacturers continue to launch new products in medical testing and health indicator monitoring to improve the accuracy of test data and product performance of medical electronic products, while also reducing the cost of the entire equipment so that more patients can enjoy the benefits brought by technology. This is not only a hot technology that medical electronics manufacturers need to pay attention to, but also one of the research and development missions of all engineers engaged in the research and development of medical electronic equipment.