H MICRO– CASE STUDY
HMicro
HMicro is a wireless healthcare chip company to enable industry’s first fully disposable wireless patches with high reliability, high data integrity, low cost, small form factor HMicro is engaged in the design, manufacture and distribution of advanced Disposable
Wireless solutions for the monitoring of vital signs and physiological information in all healthcare settings
THE ENGAGEMENT
HMicro wanted a cost effective partner for outsourced product development and engaged Gadgeon in November 2011. As part of the Product Engineering service agreement Gadgeon helped HMicro in developing the following projects for them.
Wireless ECG monitor – Proof of Concept of Wireless ECG Monitor using FPGA board + off-the-shelf ECG patch + Android application
Software Development Framework and Hardware Abstraction API for HMicro’s System on Chip
WLAN MAC porting WiFi supplicant WiFi TDMA
Device API + IPC mechanism Boot ROM
Electrical and Functional characterization of HMicro’s ECG patch
Development of Adaptor – Hardware and Firmware to integrate HMicro’s wireless patch with legacy ECG monitor in hospital environment
Project 1
Wireless ECG – PoC
Business Need
Demonstrate new chip capability and secure next round of funding by:a)Developing an Android app to showcase the capabilities of new custom WiFi based ECG sensor chip
b) Develop an Android app with control logic to demonstrate real world scenario of Remote Patient Monitoring
Technology
Wireless Sensors, WiFi, GPRS, Android, Java
Gadgeon’s Role
Designed a custom WiFi packet format and connection mechanism that does not require an entire WiFi protocol stack for performing ECG data transfer to Android DevicesDeveloped 2 Android apps that :
*collects ECG data from wireless sensors and plots;
*share data to remote Android device and displays at remote end.
Integrated the Sensors, Chip and Android apps
Generic API release to integrate other type of sensors like
Gyroscope and accelerometer and enable OEM to make their own Android app
Business Benefits
Gadgeon helped customer in crucial phase to demonstrate chip capabilities amidst many technological limitations and helped the customer to realize next round of funding.Customer could focus on their core competency in chip design and ensuring the software development, system integration etc were scaled up with minimal overheads compared to developing an in house team.
Parallel development of Software at Gadgeon and Chip at customers end which saved a lot of time
Participation at the early stage of a chip design process enables us to develop quick solutions to targeted vertical customers, reducing the cycle time of the overall solution realization.
PROJECT 2
Project 2
SoC HAL + SDK Firmware
Business Need
Bringing out power efficient cost effective wireless SoC for medical application within the window ofopportunity
Technology
Wireless Sensors, WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n, coOS,
LWIP, Language C
Gadgeon’s Role
Migrated third party WLAN MAC IP from a split architecture to a fully embedded one: Lower MAC in PCI card and higher MAC in windows to a fully embedded MAC running in the SoCPorted from ARM7 TDMI to ARM Cortex family
Modified to take advantage of Hardware acceleration features
Implemented a propriety TDMA scheme
Added support for propriety dual PHY
API specification and Implementation for application programmers of the SoC
Reference application software
Bootrom development
Business Benefits
Development of the software on an FPGA platform parallel to HW development by the customer.Customer could focus on their core competency in chip design while ensuring that the software development, system integration etc were scaled up with minimal overheads compared to developing an in house team.
By Parallel development Gadgeon-HMicro team could test and verify SoC functionalities as soon as the chip was available.
Project 3
Adapter: For existing legacy ECG monitors to
receive data from H Micro Chips
Business Need
HMicro needed an Adapter to demonstrate the benefit of their disposable wireless ECG Technology with the existing legacy ECG monitors in hospital environmentTechnology
Wireless Sensors, WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n, coOS,
LWIP, Language C
Gadgeon’s Role
Teaming with HMicro to define functional and usage requirements of the Adapter,Hardware component identification and selection for realizing the Adapter in a production ready form factor
Firmware customization and Application software development
Testing in laboratory and in hospital environment.
Business Benefits
Product demonstration of the Adapter, which is anintegral part of the wireless patch solution, for fund approvals enabled at very early stage, which is unique to GadgEon.
In- house expert testing team and facilities added to the cost savings and ensured timely delivery.
This Adapter is an integral part of HMicro’s wireless patch solution and Gadgeon helped in accelerating product demonstration to potential customers and investors
About Gadgeon:
Gadgeon, an Embedded System Company with special focus on outsourced product development in the area of Internet of Things. Gadgeon specializes in:
Product realization from Specifications to Prototypes
Hardware design/ Firmware/ Embedded Application development based on ARM Cortex family and TI’s MSP430
Wireless firmware development for low power devices using WiFi, BLE, ZigBee and Simpliciti protocols
Embedded OS - Linux, Android, freeRTOS, coOS, etc. Embedded Application Development using C/C++ Outsourced Testing Services
Contact: Anil Pillai
VP Sales (North America) Gadgeon Smart Systems Phone: +1-925-596-1554
