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Wearable Health

Nearly all of the human-body signals traditionally monitored in a clinical environment can now be collected by a wearable product, very often with close to the same level of precision. These traditional signals include:

Pulse/Heart Rate
Blood Oxygen
Stress
Electrocardiogram (EKG/ECG)
Body Temperature
UV Light (Skin Exposure)

Applications Featured Products Solutions

Applications

Power and Battery Management

In a wearable product the power system must be able to regulate voltage from a battery—a voltage source with a declining voltage output. The regulators must be efficient enough to maximize charge usage, and must also supply all of the power rails required by the design. The usable voltage range of a rechargeable Li+ battery ranges from 4.2V to approximately 3.2V. Most wearable products use main power rails that are below the minimum charge of a single-cell Li+ battery, so the main rails are typically sourced by a step-down regulator. Some functions within a wearable product may require a higher voltage level than that provided by a single-cell battery. Thus, the power management function must contain at least one step-up regulator. The number of rails required depends on the device, but for optimum efficiency it is best to minimize the total number of rails.

Power Management ICs for Wearables

Processing

Power usage and processing capabilities are important selection criteria for micro-processing applications. A system partitioning strategy must be used to decide which system functions are best integrated into the microcontroller and which can be handled externally. Since wearable health devices read human body signals, the capabilities of any on-chip analog circuitry must also be taken into account to ensure they can accurately process low-level signals.

Microcontrollers for Wearable Applications

Sensors

Human body sensors output very low magnitude signals, in the millivolt and microvolt range. Our integrated devices for wearable health applications combine sensors with amplification and conversion circuits within a single die or package. These small, high-accuracy solutions provide higher magnitude analog outputs or serialized digital outputs.

Sensors for Wearable Applications

Featured Products

High-Sensitivity Pulse Oximeter and Heart-Rate Sensor

MAX30102

Pulse Oximeter and Heart-Rate Biosensor for Wearable Health

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Wearable Charge Management Solution

MAX14676

This battery-charge-management solution includes a linear battery-charger with 28V tolerant input, smart power control, and several power-optimized peripherals. A boost regulator with 5V to 17V output, and 3 programmable current sinks can drive a variety of LED configurations.

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Wearable Power Management Solution for Primary Cells

MAX20310

Wearable Power Management for Single-Cell Zinc Air, Silver Oxide, and Alkaline Battery Architectures

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Wearable Charge-Management Solution

MAX14690

Extends Battery Life of Wearable Electronics

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High-Sensitivity Pulse Oximeter and Heart-Rate Sensor

MAX30101

Includes 3 LEDs (Red, IR, Green), photo diode, and AFE in a 5.6mm x 3.3mm x 1.55mm optical module for HR and SpO2 measurement.

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Ultra-Low Power Arm^® Cortex^® M4 with FPU Microcontroller for Wearables and IoT, with 2MB Flash and 512KB SRAM, and Advanced Cryptographic Hardware Engines

MAX32630/MAX32631

The MAX32630/MAX32631 feature an Arm^® Cortex^®-M4 with FPU CPU that delivers ultra-low power, high-efficiency signal processing functionality with significantly reduced power consumption and ease of use.

Wellness Measurement Microcontroller

MAX32600-KIT

This complete functional system includes a MAX32600 wellness measurement microcontroller, selectable power sources, headers for access to I/O port pins and the AFE, 8-digit LCD display, USB, UART, low-power Bluetooth^® transceiver, and general-purpose IO.

Ultra-Low Power Arm Cortex M4 with FPU Microcontroller for Wearables and IoT, with up to 512KB Flash and 160KB SRAM

MAX32625/MAX32626

The MAX32625/MAX32626 feature an Arm® Cortex®-M4 with FPU CPU that delivers high-efficiency signal processing, ultra-low power consumption and ease of use.

Ultra-Low-Power Arm^® Cortex^®-M3 with Wellness Sensor Analog Front-End, Advanced Hardware Security, 256KB Flash and 32KB SRAM

MAX32600

High-Performance, Ultra-Low Power ARM Cortex-M4F with FPU-Based Microcontroller for Rechargeable Devices

MAX32620/MAX32621

Ultra-Low Power Cortex-M4F for Wearable Medical and Fitness Applications

Solutions

Resources

Technical Docs

Type	ID	PDF	Title
Tutorial	4702		Easily Add Memory, Security, Monitoring, and Control to Medical Sensors and Consumables
Tutorial	4700		Introduction to Medical Instruments and Growing Trend for Point-of-Care and Near-Patient Testing