An implantable seizure-detection chip paves the way for innumerable other applications.

Imagine a world in which the technology for medical diagnosis and treatment was as mobile as a cellphone, lowering health-care costs and reducing the need for hospital stays.

TI is already moving down that path, starting with a design for an ultra-low-power electroencephalograph (EEG) seizure-detection chip.

Ultra-low-power chips are essential components in implantable, wearable and portable medical devices. In this case, TI engineers devised a combination of low-voltage circuits, high-efficiency energy conversion and novel designs that resulted in the world’s lowest-power EEG seizure detection chip.

It can run for 10 years on a single battery.

• Other applications for ultra-low-power technology include blood glucose meters, wearable vital-signs monitors and an array of implantable devices such as pacemakers. All of them demand ultra-low-power designs in order to make use of limited battery power to drive sophisticated processors.
• TI engineers paid particular attention to system architecture, where a judicious combination of programmable and hard-wired processing elements ensures lower power consumption than fully programmable architectures.
• Engineers developed a novel approach that combined the best elements of a microcontroller and a specialized processor to further reduce power consumption in this ultra-low-power biomedical application.

Ultimately an implantable EEG seizure detector would be combined with an implantable neuro-stimulator to provide relief to the world’s millions of epilepsy patients.

Such an ultra-low-power design opens the opportunity for lower-cost advanced therapy for many other debilitating conditions as well, and that should lead to many more people receiving both treatment and preventive care.