by Virna Bottarelli | With the Nano-Bio Materials Consortium, Seedsthe global reference association for the semiconductor industry, has been engaged since 2013 in the study of electronic technologies that improve health monitoring and diagnostics.
"The Nano-Bio Materials Consortium (NBMC) was founded to bring together scientists, engineers and professionals from industry, government and academia to collaboratively initiate research and development of electronic technologies to improve human health monitoring, diagnostics and performance enhancement," explains Rene Krantz, Director of R&D Programs & Business Development at Semi. "The goal is to proactively build an ecosystem that can drive innovation in medical and health electronics towards products that serve society efficiently and on time. And it is these innovations that are laying the foundations for new products in the field of digital health and personalised medicine, which in turn are geared towards better protecting our health."
One of the consortium's initiatives is Smart MedTech, which aims to bridge the gap between traditional engineering and life sciences with the support of increasingly high-performance semiconductors, sensors, wireless connectivity, processors and memories for ever smaller and more efficient medical devices. Rene Krantz speaks of a true "healthcare revolution" that will move from an operator-centric model of care to "a personalised, outcome-based, decentralised, location-neutral model of care that is specific to each person's health and medical needs and leverages a team of connected providers like never before".
The success of this model will depend on microelectronics and related technology. In particular, Semi and its members will focus on three pillars: 'A funded R&D platform, a commercial platform and an educational platform,' says Krants, who also provides some data on semiconductors and the medical sector: 'Over the next five years, semiconductors are expected to grow by 3-5%, but semiconductors for medical applications are expected to grow by 10-12%.
In terms of technology trends, Krantz points to the growing demand for advanced logic, higher density of non-volatile memory on devices and wireless connectivity. Also interesting is the concept of 'democratisation of healthcare', which is to be achieved by using consumer electronics to innovate care and treatment.
This month Semi will launch the Global Smart MedTech Symposium, which will continue the exploration of electronic technologies for monitoring systems and data processing. It will discuss real-time monitoring of biochemical markers, digital genomics, biosensors and wearable devices, and physiological markers related to health and well-being, such as stress, fatigue, chronic diseases.
