Company News Contact Us EN-DE Custom ASIC Design Services Silicon IP Markets Home / Market Sectors / Custom ASIC: Medical and Healthcare Applications Medical and Healthcare : ASIC Design and Supply EnSilica is your trusted partner focused on custom ASIC design for medical and healthcare OEMs looking to deliver reliable, leading-edge solutions across a wide range of applications. ASIC development can reduce BOM cost by as much as 80% but has historically been reserved for companies who had the high-volume production required to justify the up-front NRE costs. This has now changed. The benefits of the ASIC form factor, reliability, environmental robustness, IP protection, functional safety and security of supply now provide the compelling business case required for many applications in the medical and healthcare markets. Smart healthcare is driving the development of new classes of devices for monitoring and control which reduce waste and increase productivity while also providing cost savings that far outweigh the investment in the underlying technology. Vital Signs Healthcare Sensor Interface IC for Low Power Applications ENS62020 can be interfaced with an array of ultra low-power biometric sensor front-ends for vital signs monitoring for healthcare and wearable applications. It is designed to be used alongside an edge processor or communication devices. ENS62020 supports the accurate and reliable measurement of ECG, optical signals (PPG (HR), SpO2, Near InfraRed Spectroscopy, Fluorescent Glucose Sensing), temperature and differential capacitance. Request Product Information Typical Healthcare/Medical ASICs Vital signs monitoring ( ECG, respiration, pulse and temperature) Motion and gait monitoring and analysis Hearing aids Neurological sensors and stimulators Lab-on chip interfaces RFID and tags eSi-MediSense: Customisable ASIC Platform Wireless medical sensor platform for ultra-low-power wireless vital signs and medical monitoring products The eSi-MediSense is a customizable ASIC platform for ultra-low-power wireless vital signs and medical monitoring products. This versatile platform allows for fast time to market of medical and healthcare sensor wearables requiring sub-GHz ISM-band, BLE and/or NFC wireless connectivity. A high-performance configurable processor provides on-chip pre-processing of the sensor data with an optional machine learning accelerator providing the capability of performing AI at the edge. The platform supports the accurate and reliable measurement of ECG, heart rate, respiration rate, and temperature. A flexible interface is also provided for electro chemical-based measurement such as amperometric, voltammetric or impedance measurements. Platform Fact Sheet Advances in ASIC Technologies Recent advances in ASIC technologies make it possible to integrate all the functionality required to bring next-generation designs to market, including; custom sensor and control interfaces, wired and wireless connectivity, embedded security, ai and machine-learning, functional safety, high-voltage circuits and embedded memory. Connectivity A wide range of connectivity options can be integrated into an ASIC by our skilled silicon engineers who have extensive RF and digital expertise working with both internal and third-party silicon IP. Wireless options include: Bluetooth Classic, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), NFC/RFID, Wi-Fi (802.11), LoRa, NB-IoT, 802.15.4 (Zigbee/6LowPAN), Wireless M-Bus, WirelessHart and 802.15.6 (wireless body area networks). EnSilica have developed custom sub-GHz and GHz radio systems and have experience integrating wired interfaces such as Ethernet, USB, MIPI CSI2 and PCIe, as well as lower complexity interfaces such as CAN, I2C, UART and SPI. Sensing and Control Our pedigree in analog covers low-noise sensor interfaces as well as high-voltage sensing and control using high voltage semiconductor processes. For industrial control applications this includes motor and solenoid controllers, LED and laser drivers, and for industrial sensing; low noise frontends, sense amplifiers, sigma-delta and SAR ADC designs. For medical applications we have experience working with ECG, respiration, pulse rate and temperature monitoring as well as design lab-on-chip based electrochemical sensors. Edge Processing and AI The trend is for the “thing” in the Industrial Internet of Things, or the functionality at the heart of any medical device, to get smarter. To meet this demand, we work with a range of IP partners to ensure we select and deliver the most appropriate processor core or DSP to meet each device’s specific requirements. There is also an increasing trend for IoT devices to exploit Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the use of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) are among the most popular ML networks, which require a high level of matrix multiplications, for which DSP SIMD operations are a good fit. Dedicated Neural Network Accelerators (NNAs) are the most efficient, achieving 10x performance levels compared to a DSP, but less flexible. Recent advances in AI/ML have led to a range of NNAs being developed by our IP partners which can be integrated into edge devices for smart processing of data from audio, video, Radar, vibration or motion sensors. IP suppliers for NNA include Arm, Imagination Technologies, CEVA and Tensilica, our engineers have the skills and experience necessary to integrate these IPs into a SoC design alongside a conventional processor, DSP and/or GPU core. Embedded Security With the ever-increasing threat of cyber-attacks comes the need to ensure any connected device is sufficiently protected so that its operation is not disrupted, and the attack does not compromise safety, data security or profitability. EnSilica has access to a broad library of internal hardware cryptographic accelerator IP and will also use 3rd party security solutions from our partners such as Rambus and Arm to ensure we deliver the highest level of security solutions, including: Firmware integrity and secure boot Secure, mutual authentication for device identification Secure Communication with end-to-end encryption Security life-cycle management Tamper and side-channel attack protection Technical Article: Developing Safety Critical SoCs In this article we outline an approach to functional safety that addresses the twin challenges of safety and growing SoC complexity, and which ensures SoCs comply with a wide variety of safety standards such as IEC 61508, ISO 26262, DO-178, DO-254 and ISO 62304 by having safety designed in from the start. Read Article Functional Safety EnSilica’s high-quality processes for design and production are built around our ISO2001:2015 quality management systems. We offer an IEC61508 compliant flow for the development of ASICs and embedded software for industrial applications and we are experienced at working within our customer’s ISO 13485 certified environments to develop ASICs for medical devices. Our engineers are experienced in safety analysis, FMEDA, FTA, and on-chip safety mechanisms and our quality systems and design flow provide traceability through the full product life cycle. EnSilica – Simplifying Your Path to ASIC Deployment EnSilica’s engineers live and breathe ASIC development every day and apply their in-depth knowledge to ensure that every project meets its requirements and is delivered on-time, on budget and right first-time. Our wealth of experience combined with our Custom ASIC and full-flow ASIC Design Services enable OEMs and IC design teams to overcome the challenges in complex ASIC design, including: Increasing design complexity and timescale pressure Advances in silicon process capability Performance, cost, and power optimisation Verification complexity and coverage IP selection and integration New EDA tools and methodologies Article: The Economics of ASICs: At What Point Does a Custom SoC Become Viable? ASIC Benefits Reduced BOM Increased performance Lower power consumption Added functionality Enhanced security Smaller size and weight Improved IP protection Improved yields Reduced test and assembly costs Improved Reliability Find out more If you are looking for an industrial or healthcare ASIC development and supply partner with the right expertise and experience to bring your next product to market quickly and efficiently then please get in touch for an initial discussion or to request an ASIC Design Consultation. Contact Us About Us EnSilica is a leading fabless design house focused on custom ASIC design and supply for OEMs and system houses, and IC design services for companies with their own design teams. The company has world-class expertise in supplying custom analog, mixed signal and digital IC’s to its international customers in the automotive, industrial, healthcare and consumer markets. The company also offers a broad portfolio of core IP covering cryptography, Radar and communications systems. EnSilica has a track record in delivering high quality solutions to demanding industry standards. Quick Links Contact Us Local Offices Custom ASICs Design Services Markets Case Studies Silicon IP Quality Certified to ISO 9001:2015 - Read More Twitter Tweets by EnSilica Checkout More Videos by EnSilica © Copyright - EnSilica | Privacy Notice | Call Us - UK General : +44 118 321 7310 - UK Sales : +44 118 380 5757 - USA : +1 855 642 1070 - India : +91 80 2258 4450