Semiconductor technology has played a major role in the success of the implantable medical device industry. The technical sophistication of implanted devices has generally mirrored that of the broader semiconductor industry, with significant advances in sensing, computational algorithms and telemetry leveraging core technology from other industries. Historically, medical device IC design has been a “boutique” enterprise, often contained as a captive development group within large medical device companies. However, the drive in the semiconductor industry towards ultra-low power sensor-rich applications, combined with the financial barrier of designing in the latest nodes, is threatening to disrupt the captive development model. Mirroring a classical disruption curve, ‘commodity’ silicon is displacing custom silicon with the trade-off of more power dissipation (in the short term) for greater flexibility and faster time-to-market. As this trend evolves, the role of the in-house IC designer is evolving to focus on the specifics of the ‘body-electronic’ interface where they offer the most value and know-how. This talk will provide an overview of the historical trends behind this (r)evolution.
Tim Denison received his S.M. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his A.B. in Physics from the University of Chicago. He is currently the Senior IC Engineering Manager for Medtronic Neuromodulation . He won the 2006 Technical Contributor of the Year award at Medtronic for his work on micropower dynamic compensation techniques. Prior to joining Medtronic, he worked as a Senior Design Engineer with the Micromachined Products Division at Analog Devices.