Maxim Integrated?s Health Sensor Platform 3.0 Reduces Development Time of Healthcare Wearables

By Tiera Oliver

Associate Editor

Embedded Computing Design

October 29, 2020

News

MAXREFDES104# is a wrist form factor reference design ready to collect blood oxygen, ECG, heart rate, body temperature and activity data.

The Health Sensor Platform 3.0 (HSP 3.0) announced by Maxim Integrated, also known as MAXREFDES104#, is a ready-to-wear wrist form factor reference design. Per the company, the device monitors blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), electrocardiogram (ECG), heart rate (HR), body temperature, and motion.

Included algorithms provide HR, heart-rate variability (HRV), respiration rate (RR), SpO2, body temperature, sleep quality, and stress level information at clinical-grade levels. Also, per the company, it allows wearable designers to start collecting data, saving at least six months over building these devices from scratch. 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.

Compared to its predecessor, Health Sensor Platform 2.0 (HSP 2.0), the HSP 3.0 adds optical SpO2 measurement and dry-electrode capability to the ECG. As a result, 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). Compared to its predecessor, the narrower form factor and optical architecture of HSP 3.0, according to the company, improves 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:

  • MAX86176: Low-noise optical photoplethysmography (PPG) and electrical ECG analog 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 device enables synchronous acquisition of PPG and ECG measurements, even with independent sample rates, providing pulse transit time for cardiac health use cases.
  • MAX20360: Integrated power and battery management power management IC (PMIC) optimized for advanced body-worn health sensing devices. It includes Maxim Integrated’s high-accuracy ModelGauge m5 EZ fuel gauge, a sophisticated haptic driver, and a low-noise buck-boost converter that maximizes SNR and minimizes power used for optical bio-sensing.
  • MAX32666: Bluetooth (BLE)-enabled, ultra-low power microcontroller with two Arm Cortex-M4F cores and an additional SmartDMA which permits running the BLE stack independently, leaving the two main cores available for major tasks. Moreover, the microcontroller integrates an entire security suite and error correcting code (ECC) on the memories to increase the system’s robustness.
  • MAX32670: Ultra-low-power microcontroller dedicated to Maxim Integrated’s PPG algorithms of pulse rate, SpO2, HRV, RR, sleep quality monitoring, and stress monitoring. It can be configured either as a sensor hub to support firmware and algorithms or as an algorithm hub to support multiple algorithms. The MAX32670 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.
  • MAX30208: The digital temperature sensor comes in a small package size of 2mm x 2mm. It has 33 percent lower operating current compared to the closest competitive solution. It reads the temperature on the top of the package and can be mounted on a flex cable or PCB, making it ideal to design into wearables. With accuracy of 0.1-degrees Celsius, the MAX30208 meets clinical temperature requirements.

HSP 3.0, also known as MAXREFDES104#, is available with hardware, firmware and algorithms for $400 on Maxim Integrated’s website.

For more information, visit: https://www.maximintegrated.com/en.html

Tiera Oliver, Associate Editor for Embedded Computing Design, is responsible for web content edits, product news, and constructing stories. She also assists with newsletter updates as well as contributing and editing content for ECD podcasts and the ECD YouTube channel. Before working at ECD, Tiera graduated from Northern Arizona University where she received her B.S. in journalism and political science and worked as a news reporter for the university’s student led newspaper, The Lumberjack.

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