New-Tech Europe | Oct 2016 | Special Edition For Electronica 2016

Figure 2.

consumption, a key requirement for devices that users do not want to have to recharge every day. Given its compatibility with smartphones, BLE has important advantages for wellness devices that are sold to consumers over the counter as well as for more specialised medically oriented devices. BLE is well supported by component manufacturers such as CSR and STMicroelectronics for both sensor devices and monitoring hubs, where BLE is often coupled with WiFi, allowing easy transfer of data to the internet. However, ZigBee has longer range, suiting it to use where sensors need to be integrated in the home and are not just deployed around the body. Microcontroller suppliers such as Atmel, Freescale Semiconductor and Texas Instruments have developed IoT-capable processors that can handle BLE and ZigBee protocol stacks. These offerings are scalable through support for 8-bit and 32-bit

cores, depending on the complexity of the software needed by each particular sensor node. IoT-oriented MCUs often incorporate specialised low-power support such as hardware state machines that offload much of the real-time sensor processing from the core processor itself. This allows the processor to spend much of its time in a low- energy sleep mode, only waking up when the peripheral hardware indicates that a sensor has picked up a sudden change in activity or condition. Because a high proportion of time is spent in sleep mode – often higher than 99 per cent – overall energy consumption is kept to a minimum and ensuring longer periods between recharge. Through dedicated silicon support, the IoT is set to revolutionise the world of healthcare and promote a shift in thinking to ongoing wellness, and heading off the need to deal with the consequences of illness.

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