Cactus Semiconductor just announced a compact, versatile, fully programmable IC designed for medical device manufacturers involved in peripheral nerve stimulation and other implantable pulse generator applications. According to the press release: “Cactus Semiconductor, Inc. is pleased to announce the introduction of our first ASSP (Application Specific Standard Product); developed for medical device designers and manufacturers to
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Monash University in Australia Starts Test of Direct-to-Brain Visual Prosthesis Chips
Engineers from the Monash Vision Group (MVG) have begun trialling the ASICs for a direct-to-brain visual prosthesis that is expected to enter human clinical trials in 2014. The prosthesis will consist of a tiny camera mounted into a pair of glasses, which acts as the retina; a pocket processor, which takes the electronic information from
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Nanowattics: Ultra-Low-Power ASIC Design for Implantable Devices
Nanowattics was founded in 2007 to provide development services of ultra-low-power application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for safety-critical applications. Nanowattics’ core team is extremelly experienced in the design of ASICs for implantable medical devices. Their designs include the main ASIC for a DDDR pacemaker, a sub-microvolt differential amplifier for electroneurographic signal acquisition, and the chipset for a
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Radiation-Hardened ICs for Implantable Medical Devices
Lately I’ve received many inquiries about the paper on radiation-hardness testing of implantable integrated circuits that I published with Dr. Larry Stotts (now Executive VP R&D at Biotronik), and the late Dr. John Prince. This is because the effects of medical diagnostic and therapeutic radiation are becoming an issue of concern to physicians who often encounter
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Cactus/Freescale Semiconductor ICs for Implantable Medical Devices
Image Credit: Freescale Semiconductor, from “Integrated Circuits for Implantable Medical Devices” An article by Steve Taranovich in the December 15, 2011 issue of EDN discussed technologies that are expected to be hot in 2012. One of these is the implantable chipset being developed by a collaborative effort between Cactus Semiconductor of Chandler, AZ and semiconductor giant
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EBR System’s Wireless Pacemaker
EBR Systems, Inc., founded in 2003 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, is developing the WiCS® Wireless Cardiac Stimulation technology to eliminate cardiac pacing leads, historically a major source of complications and reliability issues. The startup was spun out of research by founder Debra Echt, a former professor of medicine and a cardiologist at Vanderbilt University.
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CCC Medical – Top OEM to AIMD Start-Ups
CCC is one of the oldest pacemaker manufacturers in the world. It was founded in 1969 by Dr. Orestes Fiandra, who performed the first succesful, human, long-term pacemaker implant in the world. This was achieved in Uruguay on February 2, 1960 by Dr. Orestes Fiandra and Dr. Roberto Rubio. The pacemaker was manufactured by Dr. Rune Elmqvist of
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ST Microelectronics Developing Implantable SOCs
Medical Product Manufacturing News announced that ST Microelectronics is developing ultra-low-power Systems On Chip (SOCs) suitable for implantable medical devices. ST Microelectronics’ 65nm features a Vt of only 0.6V that can be used very near threshold. The REISC processor consumes barely 10.8pJ/cycle at 0.6V. This type of technology will certainly enable many new implantable devices
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