Miniaturized Packaging Of Memory Products For Portable And Wearable Medical Applications

By Grant Floyd, Senior Product Marketing Engineer, Memory Products Division, Microchip Technology Inc.

The latest innovations in portable and wearable medical devices are driving a greater need for the miniaturization of semiconductor components. Many of these devices require on-board memory for storing calibration data, test results, or data logging. A common solution is to use a non-volatile memory product, such as serial EEPROM or Flash memory, which provides the high reliability and minimal power consumption demanded by portable medical applications. Wearable medical devices are generally designed to be as unobtrusive as possible. Therefore, it is important to obtain the required memory density in the smallest possible package. For example, hearing aids are becoming increasingly customizable with user-specific programming, multiple modes for different listening environments, and data logging for further tuning during follow-up appointments. These innovations require more data storage in a limited form factor. To enable this, many medical device designers are turning to innovative bare-die memory solutions.