IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Winter 2015 - 24

Capacitive-to-digital converters
are essential sensor interface components, where new circuit technologies result in increased accuracy,
smaller die size, and reduced power
consumption. Digital-centric implementations enable these improvements to be maintained in more
advanced processes.
MEMS inertial sensors (accelerometers and gyroscopes) are key
components used in a large variety
of consumer products, where ultralow power consumption is a key
requirement. For automotive applications, reduced vibration sensitivity and high precision are additional
requirements.
In life-science applications, there
is an ever-increasing demand for
higher-throughput tools, such as
cellular and molecular assays, coming from the field of precision and
personalized medicine. As well,
for improved capability and quality, medical ultrasound is moving toward 3-D imaging with large
arrays. As these arrays increase in
size, the number of connections to
the front-end processing circuitry
and the amount of required signal
processing are becoming bottlenecks. To resolve this congestion,
MEMS transducers and CMOS technology increasingly allow transducer
arrays and their signal processors to
be mounted together. On the other
hand, smart wearable sensors for
medical applications will support
continuous remote monitoring with
data transmission to centralized analysis systems.

Innovative Topics-Technology
Directions
Subcommittee Chair: Eugenio
Cantatore, Eindhoven University
of Technology, The Netherlands
A breakthrough concept in biomedical electronics has been the development of "anytime and anywhere"
human monitoring systems using
wearable/implantable devices. This
will enable improvements in the
quality of life, such as self-health

W I N T E R 2 0 15

ISSCC continues to be the premier technical forum
for presenting advances and predicting trends in
solid-state circuits and systems.
checks, remote medical examination, and constant monitoring for
acute diseases.
Key technologies for such systems include
1) small footprint devices and flexible electronics to enhance the
comfort of wearable devices
2) high accuracy and low-power
monitoring devices
3) low-power communication systems for wireless operation.
To develop devices with a small
footprint, highly integrated biomedical SoCs capable of sensor
detection, diagnosis, and wireless
communication have been developed. Progress in the development
of 3-D-integrated electrodes and sensors with MEMS has also contributed
to reduce the footprint. To monitor
weak vital signs, such as electrocardiogram (ECG) and electroencephalogram (EEG), with a high degree of
accuracy, there is clear progress in
variation-correction methodologies
and techniques to compensate for
artifacts due to the subject's movements. Furthermore, state-of-theart biomedical SoCs are capable
of multimodal telemonitoring of
various biosignals. To improve the
device longevity, SoCs have evolved
to include a power-efficient dedicated processor and algorithms for
diagnosis, ultra-low-power circuit
blocks, low-power wireless circuits,
and energy-harvesting technologies.
Furthermore, various communication standards are being developed
to satisfy the low-power requirements of portable medical systems.
Another trend in technology
directions is a move toward lab-ona-chip or semiconductor systems
for diagnosis and disease screening.
Silicon solutions are being designed
for portable systems to quickly and
inexpensively diagnose illness from
simple blood tests, to imaging, to

IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE

spectroscopy. The trend of using
emerging technologies such as MEMS
or CMOS-CNT (carbon nanotube)
arrays to solve medical problems
will make it possible to bring traditionally expensive diagnostic tools
to rural and remote areas where
medical expertise is typically scarce.

Summary
According to the SIA, the semiconductor industry generated US$306
billion in sales in 2013! In this environment, ISSCC continues to be the
premier technical forum for presenting advances and predicting trends
in solid-state circuits and systems.
Beyond this article, a complete
trends document will be available
at www.isscc.org. These trends are
highlighted in papers to be presented
at the 62nd ISSCC, 22-26 February,
in San Francisco, California. Attendance at ISSCC 2015 is expected to
be around 3,000. Corporate attendees from the semiconductor and system industries typically represent
around 60% of the attendees. We look
forward to seeing you there!

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the ISSCC 2015 Technical
Program Committee for providing
original content for this article and
each of the ten subcommittee chairs
as referenced in each of the trends
sections for their leadership role.
Without their collective efforts, this
article would not have been possible.

About the Authors
Siva G. Narendra is with Tyfone in
Portland, Oregon.
Laura C. Fujino is with the University of Toronto in Canada.
Kenneth C. Smith is with the University of Toronto in Canada.

http://www.isscc.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Winter 2015