Image you wake up in the moing and ask: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, what cloth should I wear and what skincares should I put on today?” In response, the magic mirror “answers” your questions based on prevailing weather conditions as well as your skin’s situation. Furthermore, imagine how expedient it will be to have your watch or ring tracks your heartbeat, pulse, blood sugar, blood pressure, weight and others, and remind you to exercise or to take your medicine.
By no means are these fairy tales or science fictions! In fact, we’re going to live through them in the not-so-distant future. Through constant innovations in IC design technology, we shall be able to manage our personal health in a smart way. First, the smart chips coupled with minute sensing devices are embedded in bracelets, earrings or necklaces, for instance. And then these intelligent oaments are placed to measure a person’s vital signs in a specific condition that will arm one with more information to understand what one’s body is doing.
As soon as molecules emitting, heat flux flowing or galvanic signals generating from the human body, they pass through the wireless smart chips where they are detected by various types of sensors. After processing via the circuitry on the smart chips, the readings are transmitted to a home-based computer. These processed data, along with the data that are obtained from the exteal environmental sensors, are then relayed to the hospitals for trend analyses, diagnostic reviews as well as storage. After that, the information on what’s going on with one’s body and associated expert recommendations is reflected back to the home-based computer monitor. This will be very instructive for a person to be able to take charge of his/her own health.
Toward this vision, researchers at the NARL’s National Chip Implementation Center (CIC) have devised a single chip-based platform that allows sensing devices to monitor vital signs and environmental conditions, and low-power network technology to transmit data wirelessly. The very platform embeds six major technologies: MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical system) integrated technology; CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor)-MEMS integrated technology; heterogeneous chip system packaging; CMOS biomedical MEMS platform; heterogeneous measurement technology; and integrated technology for wireless transmission. The successful demonstration of the platform opens up a whole vista of possibilities in the way health is monitored and treated. And this platform shall take health practitioners one step closer to all the possibilities of next-generation healthcare.
Chin-Long Wey, the NARL-CIC’s director-general, pointed out the significant breakthrough of the single chip platform technology is suitable for the growing population of elderly people. As the home care market grows at a surging rate of 20% annually, Dr. Wey said this technology represents a huge business opportunity. And it shall pave the way to reverse the current trend of shrinking margins of electronic and information industries. But the opportunity does limit only to healthcare. Given that the single chip platform takes the advantage of reducing sizes of chips and sensing devices, and integrating various functions into the same chip, the technology can be extended to many other fields. It could be used in electronic entertainment products (e.g., Wii joystick), car electronics (e.g., safety airbags), biomedical sensors (e.g., wearable sensors), communication, photography, etc. In this regard, apart from the healthcare, the NARL-CIC researchers are currently taking lead in Taiwan to extend the technology to some other fields.
