MCUs are an integral component in smart medical devices such and the PIC18-Q40 MCU family makes it easier to design and operate them.
Microchip’s Stephanie Pinteric, 8-bit Microcontroller Business Unit discusses the new PIC18-Q40 microcontroller (MCU) Family.
Today’s Medical Developments (TMD): Can you summarize some of the key features and benefits of the new PIC18-Q40 family?
Stephanie Pinteric (SP): The PIC18-Q40 family extends the PIC18 portfolio to low pin count with large flash memory, small footprint packages and versatile analog and digital CIPs for portable and space-constrained designs. They are equipped with CIPs with interconnection capabilities that allow fast system response, precision control, design flexibility and lower power consumption. Additionally, our award-winning development tools with its Graphical User Interface (GUI) environment makes it easy to quickly customize combinations of CIPs and generate application code.
TMD: What does the PIC18-Q40 family bring to the market?
SP: It brings to designers the advanced functional capabilities of CIPs that handle a smart medical device’s critical tasks with no code or supervision from the CPU to maintain operation. This greatly simplifies the implementation of complex smart device control systems while creating new opportunities for designers to innovate.
TMD: Why are these new capabilities significant for the industry?
SP: The American Hospital Association reports that 76% of U.S. hospitals connect with patients and consulting practitioners at a distance through use of smart medical device technology. Demand is growing for these devices used in telehealth and remote medical care applications, as well as the nebulizers and syringe pumps that facilitate either unattended, continuous drug delivery or real-time dosing control.
Medical nebulizers are commonly used for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, cystic fibrosis and other respiratory diseases, while syringe pumps can save medical staff time and reduce errors for medications that need to be slowly pushed at specific flow rates at particular intervals of time over the course of several minutes to several hours.
MCUs with CIPs make it easier to build these and highly integrated smart medical devices while delivering higher performance, reducing power requirements and cost, and giving designers more flexibility to innovate new capabilities.
TMD: Can you provide examples of smart medical devices that can benefit from the PIC18-Q40 family’s capabilities?
SP: There are many good examples, including Bluetooth connected thermometers. Two specific examples to discuss are: 1) the nebulizer, a device that breaks up drug solutions into small aerosol droplets and delivers them directly to the patient’s airways for respiratory therapy; and 2) the syringe pump, which is used to gradually administer small amounts of liquid medication to patients and is also used in microfluidic applications for chemical and biochemical research.
TMD: What does the PIC18-Q40 offering bring to these applications?
SP: In the first application, the PIC18F-Q40 and its Core Independent Peripherals (CIPs) are particularly valuable for nebulizers that use an analog signal with a specific high voltage and resonant frequency to rapidly vibrate a piezoelectric mesh. The voltage and frequency of this analog driving signal can vary from device to device due to manufacturing tolerances. But the MCU and its CIPs work alongside discrete analog components to implement the piezo mesh disk driver’s core boost and output stage functions so there is always an adequate and reliable analog driving signal.
In the second application, the PIC18-Q40 family and its CIPs provide all the control signals needed for each stepping mode of a companion MTS2916A motor driver from Microchip. In both applications, the CIPs need no further firmware interaction after their initial configuration.
TMD: What benefits do Core Independent Peripherals (CIPs) bring to these types of applications?
SP: CIPs allow smaller, lower power PIC MCUs to perform timing-critical and core-intensive system tasks in hardware with no code or supervision from the CPU to maintain operation. While the CPU is free to do other tasks or go to sleep to save power, the CIPs provide the total system with precision control, fast response, power saving and lower system costs. Without CIPs, you would have to use external standalone Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) signal generators, boot converters, DACs, etc. in both examples. CIPs enables a higher level of integration which significantly reduces PCB footprint, BOM costs, power consumption and validation time.
TMD: What are some of the innovation opportunities you mention?
SP: In the nebulizer example, the power circuitry of the nebulizer consists of two functions, a boost stage to generate a higher voltage from the batteries, and an output stage which produces the sine wave to drive the piezo mesh. The boost stage uses two 16-bit Pulse Width Modulator (PWM) modules, an op-amp, a comparator, an 8-bit Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) and the Configurable Logic Cell (CLC) CIP module to implement a boost regulator that runs completely independent from the software. Initially, the software configures the peripherals and enables the output, but after that, the boost regulator requires no software interaction while running. The output stage provides the high-voltage sine wave drive signal for the piezo mesh disk. It is a boost topology as well, so it does provide gain over the bulk voltage from the boost stage. The output MOSFET is driven by the Numerically Controlled Oscillator (NCO), which provides a variable frequency with a fixed 50 percent duty cycle. The fine adjustment range of the NCO allows the output stage to be tuned to the particular piezo device attached to the nebulizer.
Microchip has developed more than 20 CIPs to autonomously handle the most common embedded tasks, leaving the CPU to perform a supervisory role. All these versatile peripherals with advanced interconnection capabilities makes it easy for developers to customize their specific design configurations. Our MCUs are equipped with CIPs like timers, simplified Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) output, Configurable Logic Cells (CLCs), Analog to Digital Converter with Computation (ADCC), multiple serial communications and much more. CIPs offer flexible, easy-to-use building blocks for developers to create a customized device.
Our MCUs feature intelligent peripherals that can automate signal analysis functions and provides programmable logic that operates outside the speed limitations of software execution which provides customers with the ability to tailor such things as waveform generation, timing measurements and more. They also provide compensation information to digital pulse-width modulators (PWMs) and provide auto-shutdown capability without CPU intervention. Our CIPs help reduce external components which decreases total system costs.
TMD: Besides medical applications, what other applications can the PIC18-Q40 family benefit?
SP: The PIC18-Q40 family in 14- and 20-pin packages are well suited for a wide range of embedded applications including remote medical care, wearables, consumer, automotive, industrial, and Internet of Things (IoT).
TMD: When will the PIC18-Q40 family be available and where can designers get additional information about it and the two application examples?
SP: The PIC18-Q40 family is available now for volume production and sampling in a variety of packages.
Even with the pandemic, Wohlers Associates found industry expansion to nearly $12.8 billion in 2020.
Wohlers Associates Inc. has published the Wohlers Report 2021, the 26th year of publishing the undisputed, industry-leading annual report on additive manufacturing (AM) and 3D printing.
The study provides trends, perspectives, and forecasts as a tool for decision making, education, and knowledge acceleration. The report gives readers new to AM a comprehensive understanding of the technology and industry. Veterans of the technology benefit from up-to-date information on growth, recent trends, and important developments worldwide.
The 375-page report discusses the impact of COVID-19 on the AM industry. Even with the pandemic, Wohlers Associates found industry expansion of 7.5% to nearly $12.8 billion in 2020. Growth was down considerably, compared to average growth of 27.4% over the previous 10 years.
Most established manufacturers of AM systems saw a decline in equipment sales, but many less-established companies grew in 2020. An increase in business by AM service providers supported industrywide growth. The following chart shows 7.1% growth from independent service providers worldwide, resulting in nearly $5.3 billion of revenue from this group.
Among the new and expanded features in Wohlers Report 2021:
The report includes commentary on 74 early-stage investments and 35 acquisitions and public offerings. AM startups and established companies have received substantial funding in the recent past. One example is Desktop Metal, which received $575 million as part of a merger with a special acquisitions company. After going public in December 2020, Desktop Metal’s market capitalization exceeded $7.5 billion in February 2021.
Wohlers Report 2021 was created with the support of 124 service providers, 113 manufacturers of AM machines, and 24 producers of third-party materials. Eighty-eight co-authors and contributors from 34 countries provided expert views and perspectives. This valuable input, coupled with the experience and data from Wohlers Associates, resulted in the most detailed and comprehensive body of work on AM available.
Wohlers Report 2021 includes 54 charts and graphs, 104 tables, and 397 images and illustrations. It also includes 80 pages of supplemental online content available exclusively to the buyers of the report.
New contact lens technology to help diagnose and monitor medical conditions may soon be ready for clinical trials.
A team of researchers from Purdue University worked with biomedical, mechanical and chemical engineers, along with clinicians, to develop the novel technology. The team enabled commercial soft contact lenses to be a bioinstrumentation tool for unobtrusive monitoring of clinically important information associated with underlying ocular health conditions.
The team’s work is published in Nature Communications. The Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization helped secure a patent for the technology and it is available for licensing.
“This technology will be greatly beneficial to the painless diagnosis or early detection of many ocular diseases including glaucoma” says Chi Hwan Lee, the Leslie A. Geddes assistant professor of biomedical engineering and assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue who is leading the development team. “Since the first conceptual invention by Leonardo da Vinci, there has been a great desire to utilize contact lenses for eye-wearable biomedical platforms.”
Sensors or other electronics previously couldn’t be used for commercial soft contact lenses because the fabrication technology required a rigid, planar surface incompatible with the soft, curved shape of a contact lens.
The editors at Today’s Medical Developments magazine have covered various developments of contact lens research. Read more here:
https://www.todaysmedicaldevelopments.com/article/medical-device-contact-lens-design-epfl-22515/
https://www.todaysmedicaldevelopments.com/article/drug-dispensing-medical-device-contact-lens-9916/
https://www.todaysmedicaldevelopments.com/article/triggerfish-glaucoma-medical-contact-lens-31816/
https://www.todaysmedicaldevelopments.com/article/powering-contact-lenses-from-within-epgl-medical-device-080113/
https://www.todaysmedicaldevelopments.com/article/bionic-contact-lens-medical-device-design-072913/
The team has paved a unique way that enables the seamless integration of ultrathin, stretchable biosensors with commercial soft contact lenses via wet adhesive bonding. The biosensors embedded on the soft contact lenses record electrophysiological retinal activity from the corneal surface of human eyes, without the need of topical anesthesia that has been required in current clinical settings for pain management and safety.
“This technology will allow doctors and scientists to better understand spontaneous retinal activity with significantly improved accuracy, reliability, and user comfort,” says Pete Kollbaum, director of the Borish Center for Ophthalmic Research and an associate professor of optometry at Indiana University who is leading clinical trials.
The other members of the team are Bryan Boudouris, a professor of chemical engineering from Purdue, and Baoxing Xu, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering from the University of Virginia.
This work is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF CMMI-1928784 & 1928788) and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR FA9550-19-1-0271). For more information about licensing opportunities, contact Patrick Finnerty of OTC at pwfinnery@prf.org.
Join us when our panel of experts will discuss trends and answer questions concerning cutting tool technologies.
Sign up now to attend GIE Media Manufacturing Group’s Cutting Tool Roundtable, March 24 at 12pm ET, where industry experts discuss the latest trends and answer attendees’ questions concerning cutting tool technology. Topics include:
Our industry experts include representatives from:
Attend for free.
Scientists develop a radiative cooler that keeps wearable devices cool even under direct sunlight.
Wearable electronic devices like fitness trackers and biosensors, are very promising for healthcare applications and research. They can be used to measure relevant biosignals in real-time and send gathered data wirelessly, opening up new ways to study how our bodies react to different types of activities and exercise. However, most body-worn devices face a common enemy: heat.
Heat can accumulate in wearable devices owing to various reasons. Operation in close contact with the user’s skin is one of them; this heat is said to come from internal sources. Conversely, when a device is worn outdoors, sunlight acts as a massive external source of heat. These sources combined can easily raise the temperature of wearable devices to levels that not only are uncomfortable for the user, but also cause erroneous readings and measurements. Unfortunately, researchers have been unable to completely address this issue. Most available heat sinks and dissipators for wearable devices are based on thin metallic layers, which block electromagnetic signals and thus hinder wireless communications.
In a recent study published in Advanced Science, scientists from Korea and the US have developed an innovative solution to combat heat in wearable biosensors. Led by Professor Young Min Song from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Korea, the team produced a nano-/micro-voids polymer (NMVP), a flexible and nonmetallic cooler made from two perforated polymers: polymethylmetacrylate and styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene.
The resulting material has many attractive qualities. First, it has almost 100% reflectivity in the solar spectrum, meaning that it reflects nearly all sunlight. Second, it has high emissivity in the range of frequencies known as the atmospheric window. Thus, the material can easily radiate excess heat into the atmosphere, which helps cool it down. Finally, the good mechanical properties of the new polymer make it suitable for outdoor wearable devices.
To test the effectiveness of their innovation, the scientists built a patch-type tissue oximeter equipped with an NMVP-based cooler. Thanks to the superior performance of the cooler, their wearable biosensor could externally measure the concentration of oxygen in blood more accurately than conventional oximeters while also maintaining a much lower temperature.
“Our approach is the first demonstration of successful thermal management in wearable devices considering both internal and external heat sources without blocking wireless communications,” Song remarks.
The promising results of this study could pave the way for the widespread adoption of wearable devices and biosensors, which will become powerful tools in health monitoring and the training of athletes.
With eyes set on the future, “Our flexible strategy for radiative cooling will help bring about thermally protected skin-like electronics, which in turn will make human body monitoring unobtrusive and imperceptible,” Song concludes.