Onera's Low-Power ONE010 Biomedical Lab-on-Chip Offers a Wealth of Inputs for Healthcare Wearables
Onera's low-power chip can be driven from a single power source down to 0.8V, and offers a wealth of inputs for body sensing.
Medical technology specialist Onera Health, in partnership with imec, has announced a chip designed for biomedical applications, amplifying and processing signals from wearable sensor devices: the Onera ONE010 Lab-on-Chip.
"We are thrilled to introduce Onera Biomedical Lab-on-Chip in the lead-up to CES 2022 in Las Vegas this week," says Ruben de Francisco, founder and chief executive of Onera — a company that has until now concentrated on sleep monitoring technology. "It's the perfect opportunity to showcase our chip to the wearables ecosystem!"
"Our highly integrated and comprehensive biosignal sensor hub is a unique solution that promises to revolutionize this competitive field. It combines clinical-grade physiological measurements and analysis with ultra-low-power consumption, enabling the development of miniaturized and high-quality wearable devices. Launching this powerful chip as a stand-alone product within our portfolio, not just as part of our innovative Onera diagnostic and monitoring solutions, is yet another exciting step for our company."
The compact chip, brought to our attention by CNX Software, is based on an Arm Cortex-M4F processor with 320kB of static RAM (SRAM) and 768kB of flash storage, with a selection of accelerators including a matrix processor and a data compactor system. Its key feature: 10 analog readouts designed for use with ExG sensors including electromyographic muscle sensors, electrocardiographic heart rate sensors, electrooculographic eye-tracking sensors, and electroencephalographic brain activity sensors.
On top of that, the Lab-on-Chip includes bioimpedance and photoplethysmography — blood volume change rate - readouts, four LED drivers, and a range of digital interfaces including multiple SPI, I2C, I2S, and UART buses, plus 48 general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins. Integrated power management supports a single input between 0.8 and 3.6V, the company confirms.
Onera is showcasing the chip this week at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, but has not yet offered pricing or availability — and neither is the part yet listed on its website.