Did COVID-19 Pandemic Give Opportunity to explore MedTech and WearableTech for semiconductor manufacturers?

Diagnosis and tracking the medical conditions, telemedicine became a significant part of our lives during this pandemic. Lockdown and working from home needed a sharp focus for technology executives. This made, many other subject matter experts from microelectronics to gather for the “first-ever virtual SEMI CTO Forum.” They investigated on possibilities of microelectronic industries to leverage future technology trends to accelerate growth in the market.

The forum drew CTO’s from Dell, Brewer Science, Babblelabs, ARM, Dow/Dupont, Tokyo Electron, E-Ink, ON Semiconductor, Qualcomm, Ulvac, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Lam Research, KLA, Microchip, Veeco, Xilinx. “Intelligent Medtech and Wearable Technologies” is the theme of this forum. This conference gathering is to focus on pre-competitive innovation. CTO forum focused on the following points,

1.Microfluidics, for Speed COVID-19 Diagnosis:

Dr. Kurt Petersen, forum speaker, a member of Band of Angels, Silicon Valley’s oldest angel investment group, said that: “to improve the diagnosis and treatment of COVID 19 and other such conditions, more than 240 companies are developing microfluidics solutions.” 

A disposable microfluidic cartridge is developed by the Cepheid company, founded by Dr. Petersen. Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2, this device is used by doctors to swab the inside patient’s mouth. It can detect COVID-19 infection in under 40 minutes. 

Dr. Petersen also mentioned a few examples of implantables and injectables under development,

Glaucoma pressure monitors: A silicon chip that is in the size of a rice grain, is inserted in the eye to measure eye pressure is developed by  Injectsense.

In vivo chemical sensing:  A continuous glucose monitoring sensor via an optical patch is developed by  Profusa.

Retinal implants: Second Sight manufactures a 60-electrode array chip that projects images onto the retina to improve vision.

The smart augmented reality contact lens invented by Mojo Vision is also one such invention. The product’s built-in display provides users up-to-date information about everything they see while remaining invisible. This works by binding 70,000 pixels into a smaller than half a millimeter chip, giving it the smallest and densest powerful display ever made. An ARM-based processor powers the contact lens. Later versions add an image sensor, eye-tracking sensors, and a communications chip.

2.Tracking and Security:

Infection tracking efficiency is key to limiting viruses’ spread, yet comes with inherent privacy and security challenges. The executives’ consensus view was that developing trusted hardware capabilities is critical for the adoption of accurate infection-tracking technologies.

3.Edge intelligence:

The challenge of remote communications crosses both Internet of Things (IoT) and people. Inquiries persists about how hundreds of billions of sensors will connect to the cloud and the power these sensors utilize. The need to push computing to the edge(where data is generated ) is rising. The essential underlying technologies will only come by combining various forms of distributed analytics with computing.

4. Remote Operation:

Executives assume that working from home or telehealth to continue building momentum long after a pandemic. To private communications at the core of these trends, Microelectronics ecosystems will need to boost performance, both in the cloud at the edge and by increasing bandwidth to enable augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), artificial intelligence (AI) applications to improve machine learning and advanced data analytics.

The microelectronics industry’s capacity to seize these opportunities will only be possible with considerable paces in innovation. Because of increasing R&D costs, device complexity, it is raising attention among the CTOs about the financial viability of cutting-edge devices. Technology partnerships and collaborations – an area where SEMI is contributing and will continue to expand its efforts as it works with the CTO community – will be critical to containing R&D costs. SEMI will help the executives identify and mobilize the resources key to future innovation.

5. Improving Home, Work Productivity is Key for AR Selection:

Recently Smart wearables are offering great warranty. In a decade, AR and VR have expanded its practical uses like AR uses for smart contact lenses, said Dr. Mike Wiemer, Co-Founder, CTO of Mojo Vision2.

Wiemer said that although many AR applications remain under improvement, the technology will only see broad adoption once it starts to improve productivity at work and home and the quality of other experiences. 

Microelectronics Takes Aim at Battling COVID-19. This CTO roundtable, a platform for discussing societal and technology issues, revealed microelectronics technology would likely give rise to solutions for battling pandemics and new business opportunities both in the short and long run.

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