您将学到什么：
- How to design medical devices with small and robust MCUs.
- 了解MCU在满足紧凑型医疗设备的低功率设计要求方面的作用。
- The role of core independent peripherals (CIPs) in MCUs.
In the last year, the global health crisis has turned our healthcare system on its head—shifting what was once a communal culture to what’s now a more remote and physically distanced future. Despite the recommended safety measures, many people still postponed medical appointments and medical care to lessen their risk of virus exposure.
As a result, remote medical care rapidly evolved, providing a safer and more convenient option for patients, while also helping to reduce strain on our overwhelmed healthcare system. In fact, the American Hospital Association reports that 76% of U.S. hospitals connect with patients and consulting practitioners at a distance using technology.
展望未来,很明显,远程医疗care using smart, portable medical devices is the future of preventative, chronic, and routine healthcare. As such, the demand for such medical devices will escalate, impacting the future of healthcare. Smarter patient diagnostic and delivery systems, like in-pocket nebulizers or Bluetooth-connected thermometers, can support a healthier population remotely. However, their compact design relies on embedded technologies that bring a high level of sophistication to a small space.
因此，当我们为远程医疗服务的未来做准备时，设计便携式，连接的医疗设备时最好的方法是什么？
小巧的麦克斯
Start by designing with small and robust microcontrollers (MCUs). As a key component of an embedded system, MCUs are used to control the application functions needed in portable medical devices, like sensor signal acquisition for biometric measurements and closed-loop control.
By choosing an MCU that automates application tasks, it can help simplify the implementation of complex control systems even further, enabling simultaneous tasks in a single MCU. With such functions, MCUs can play an essential role in portable medical designs. When choosing the right MCU for your portable medical device, make sure it offers the following capabilities spelled out below.
Low-Power Operation
Portable medical applications require an MCU that offers different power-management modes to balance performance and power consumption to extend the battery life. Portable devices must be designed to consume minimal power and run for years on a single battery.
The key to long battery life is to operate with the lowest current consumption by reducing system activity when it’s not needed. Flexible levels of configuration allow the system to consume minimal power for the tasks at hand, often without supervision from the central processing unit (CPU). Features like idle, doze, or sleep modes provide power saving to reduce active power consumption. With these low-power modes, battery life is extended for portable medical devices, while reducing current consumption, power dissipation, and costs.
Small Designs
Devices for remote medical care are meant to be used in peoples’ homes and on-the-go. Portability and small physical size are major factors that contribute to the benefit derived from these devices. The smaller and more portable such a device is, the more easily it can be included in the patient’s daily routine and the more likely it will improve outcomes.
紧凑型和小型医疗设备只能通过在整个设计过程中优化板空间，从系统体系结构开始。具有智能数字和高准确模拟外围设备的智能组合的MCU减少了对外部组件的需求，同时又节省了董事会空间和成本。
例如，高度集成的mcus喜欢微芯片技术PIC18-Q40 are equipped with advanced analog with filtering capabilities for telehealth vital-sign measurements. In addition, built-in communication protocols, including UART, SPI, and I2C, enable connectivity in telehealth designs.
Such on-chip analog peripherals enable designers to bring functions typically off-chip onto the MCU to improve system response and reduce bill-of-materials (BOM) costs. MCUs offered in small packages also reduce the printed-circuit-board (PCB) footprint, enabling developers to create extremely compact designs for smaller end products like handheld nebulizers or syringe pumps for medication delivery.
Core Independent Peripherals
核心独立外围设备（CIPS）旨在实施各种不需要与CPU持续互动的应用程序任务。这些基于硬件的外围设备消耗最小的功率，几乎不需要代码，更少的RAM和闪存才能在软件中实现相同的功能。
MCUs with CIPs significantly streamline the implementation of critical tasks for applications like smart medical devices. That’s because they’re designed to automate system tasks with no code or supervision from the CPU core, reducing the amount of code to write, debug and validate.
CIPS相互交流，有助于提高系统性能和响应能力，同时还可以减少功耗。因此，CPU可以自由专注于其他系统任务或入睡。反过来，与其他更多常规任务同时可以轻松地实现复杂的任务。通过从CPU中卸载关键时间和核心密集型功能，CIPS通过减少组件计数，代码大小，开发时间和功耗来简化医疗设计开发过程。
在为您的下一个医学设计选择合适的MCU时，请寻找提供计时器，简化的脉冲宽度调制（PWM）输出的CIP的MCU，一个带有计算的模数转换器（ADC），可配置的逻辑单元，和直接内存访问（DMA）。此外，像PIC18-Q40这样的MCUS还带来了互连功能，可允许数据，逻辑输入或模拟信号的接近零延迟共享，而无需其他代码或中断CPU。这使开发人员能够创建具有改进的系统响应，精确控制和降低功耗的定制医疗设备。
开发工具
To help support a seamless development process, while also getting products to market faster, designers should couple small and robust MCUs with software-development tool suites. These development suites provide a straightforward process for configuring basic functions on an application, simplifying and accelerating code development by using factory-validated code libraries.
使用这些工具，设计人员可以在简单的图形用户界面（GUI）环境中轻松自定义CIPS组合，并生成应用程序代码，而无需通过数据表读取。这将使医疗设计能够在几个月内从原型转变为生产，帮助当今的设计师更好地满足市场需求和供应短缺。
The global demand for smart medical devices will continue to grow with the ongoing need for remote medical care. Designing compact, power-efficient, and portable medical devices will be key to the future of our healthcare, and MCUs that can bring a high level of sophistication to compact medical designs will serve as a foundation for these critical device designs.
To learn more about meeting these demands for portable and compact medical design solutions, visitwww.microchip.com/medical。
