Freescale expands healthcare portfolio
1 min read
In a bid to strengthen its position in the health and wellness markets, Freescale Semiconductor has announced the availability of a new reference design and tower system module.
According to the embedded semiconductor specialist, the two solutions enable the quick development of ultra low power, portable and wireless medical products.
The company's activity monitor reference design allows recorded data to be interpreted and summarised enabling users to better manage fitness activities. An integrated system composed of several modules, it is hardware ready to support the ZigBee software stack and a Freescale USB stack. The reference design is a non invasive acquisition system incorporating a pedometer, electrocardiograph, food intake table, data storage, ZigBee transceiver, timer and a chronometer. Biometric data can be saved and stored in the integrated Micro SD card reader and a touch sensing interface is designed to let users control the device through a capacitive touch sensing film.
The MED-SPO2 application development tool, based on Freescale's tower system, is intended for pulse oximetry development and implementation. Software stacks and hardware design files are included, while the tool is designed to allow designers to evaluate the integrated measurement engine capabilities of Freescale's mcu families. The board can connect to a pulse oximeter sensor and send data it collects to an mcu with an integrated measurement engine, such as the Kinetis 32bit K50, 32bit MCF51MM or 8bit 9S08MM devices. The compatible Freescale mcus perform the required signal conditioning using integrated transimpedance and operational amplifiers. The expansion board is designed to connect to Freescale's TWR-K53N512, TWR-S08MM128 and TWR-MCF51MM tower system platforms. This feature enables designers to use Freescale 8 and 32bit solutions and expand functionality using numerous tower system peripheral modules like graphic and segment lcd, USB and Ethernet connectivity.
"Freescale continues to bring value to the healthcare market by providing reference designs and development systems that help simplify application development," said Bruno Baylac, director of Metering, Medical and Connectivity Solutions for Freescale. "Our latest offerings join a growing list of healthcare enablement products that enable OEMs to quickly and affordably serve the growing market of portable medical devices with wireless connectivity."
