Renesas Electronics America showcases low-power, connectivity and human-machine interface technologies

MD&M Minneapolis 2011, SANTA CLARA, USA: Renesas Electronics America Inc. will showcase its embedded semiconductor technologies at the Medical Design & Manufacturing Conference Minneapolis 2011 (MD&M) (booth #956), Nov. 1-2, at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Demonstrations will highlight several of the company’s microcontroller (MCU)-based solutions, optimized for portable healthcare applications such as devices for blood pressure, blood glucose and heart rate monitoring.

Renesas offers a complete portfolio of components, tools and solutions for its MCU-based solutions, which provide the low-power, connectivity, high-performance and high-integration elements required for current and next-generation portable medical devices. Renesas is an active member of the Continua Health Alliance and ANT+ Alliance, and continues to develop solutions that support these standards, as well as Wi-Fi, USB and Ethernet protocols, which are essential for connectivity in mobile health devices.

Renesas Product and Technology Demonstrations (Booth #956)

ANT+ Wearable Sensor Solution: Renesas’ ANT+ demonstration will pair a low-power RL78 with an ANT+ radio module, showcasing the advantages of this low-power combination for portable healthcare devices. ANT+ is a low-power radio technology that supports simple data exchanges between devices such as heart rate monitors and sport watches, which help users track and manage their fitness and personal health more effectively, and enables them to proactively work on their personal health.

Continua Demonstration Platform for Renesas V850 MCUs: Renesas’ low-power V850 MCUs support the Continua medical software without sacrificing battery life – critical for portable healthcare applications such as blood glucose monitors. Featuring the Lamprey Network HealthLink, which relays the stored data to the Google Health Gadget, the Continua demonstration platform will measure actual MCU power consumption during the execution of application and power modes for a real-world illustration of this low-power, high-reliability healthcare solution.

Continua Blood Pressure Monitoring with Renesas R8C MCUs: Renesas also will demonstrate its support of the Continua standard with an R8C Continua dongle, which connects to a commercial blood pressure monitor as a simple method to support Continua on an existing medical system.

Wi-Fi for Renesas RX MCU: Renesas will showcase a quick and easy Wi-Fi connectivity solution designed to help engineers of embedded systems meet the growing demand for Wi-Fi connectivity. Featuring a Renesas RX MCU and a fully certified Wi-Fi module, the demo highlights everything that an engineer would need to begin development to add Wi-Fi to an RX-based design. The Wi-Fi module balances ultra-low power and high performance, as well as future proofing 802.11n connectivity.

Renesas RX600 Direct-Drive TFT-LCD Solution: Renesas will showcase the processing performance of its RX CPU and the utility of its external DMA controller, demonstrating how graphic information is moved with minimal loading on the RX CPU. Connectivity options for Ethernet, USB and CAN expand the RX CPU’s performance capabilities to easily manage the touchscreen interface of a TFT-LCD panel, and other types of human-machine interface (HMI) applications.