Maxim has healthy regard for reducing development time for wearable devices
Developers can save at least six months of development time using the Health Sensor Platform 3.0 (HSP 3.0), claims Maxim Integrated Products.
The MAXREFDES104# is a ready-to-wear wrist form factor reference design which monitors blood oxygen saturation (SPO2), electrocardiogram (ECG), heart rate (HR), body temperature and motion. It includes heart rate variability (HRV), respiration rate (RR), SPO2 , body temperature, sleep quality and stress level information algorithms at clinical grade levels. It allows wearable designers to start collecting data immediately, saving at least six months over building these devices from scratch, says the comany. Designed for wrist-based form factors, HSP 3.0 can be adapted for other dry electrode form factors such as chest patches and smart rings.
The HSP 3.0 builds on Maxim’s Health Sensor Platform 2.0 (HSP 2.0), adding optical SPO2 measurement and dry electrode capability to the ECG. The company says it can enable end solutions to monitor cardiac heart and respiratory issues for management of ailments like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), infectious diseases (e.g. Covid-19), sleep apnea and atrial fibrillation (AFib).
It has a narrower form factor and enhanced optical architecture, compared with HSP 2.0 and has improved signal acquisition quality and uses upgraded microcontroller, power, security and sensing ICs. The reference design includes complete optical and electrode designs, along with algorithms to meet clinical requirements.
HSP 3.0 or MAXREFDES104# includes the following sensor, power management, microcontroller and algorithm products.
The first of these is the MAX86176. It is claimed to be the lowest-noise optical photoplethysmography (PPG) and electrical ECG analogue front end (AFE), which offers 110dB signal to noise ratio (SNR) to add SPO2 saturation capability and over 110dB common mode rejection ratio (CMRR) for dry electrode ECG applications. The MAX86176 enables synchronous acquisition of PPG and ECG measurements, even with independent sample rates, providing pulse transit time for cardiac health use cases.
The MAX20360 is an integrated power and battery management power management IC (PMIC) optimised for advanced body-worn health sensing devices. It includes Maxim Integrated’s ModelGauge m5 EZ fuel gauge, a haptic driver and a low noise buck boost converter that maximises SNR and minimises power used for optical bio-sensing.
The Bluetooth enabled MAX32666 is a low power microcontroller with two Arm Cortex-M4F cores and an additional SmartDMA which permits running the Bluetooth Low Energy stack independently, leaving the two main cores available for major tasks. The microcontroller integrates an entire security suite and error correcting code (ECC) on the memories to significantly increase the system’s robustness.
Another low power microcontroller, the MAX32670 is dedicated to Maxim Integrated’s PPG algorithms of pulse rate, SPO2, HRV, RR, sleep quality monitoring and stress monitoring. It can be configured as a sensor hub to support firmware and algorithms or as an algorithm hub to support multiple algorithms. The MAX32670 seamlessly enables customer-desired sensor functionality, including managing the MAX86176 PPG and ECG sensor AFE as well as delivering either raw or calculated data to the outside world.
Finally the low power MAX30208 digital temperature sensor is supplied in a small 2.0 x 2.0mm package. It has 33 per cent lower operating current compared to the closest competitive solution, says Maxim. It reads the temperature on the top of the package and can be mounted on a flex cable or PCB, making it easier to design into wearables. With accuracy of 0.1 degrees C, the MAX30208 meets clinical temperature requirements.
HSP 3.0, also known as MAXREFDES104#, is available with hardware, firmware and algorithms.
