Nanoradio Announces NRX700: New Low Power WLAN Chip
Nanoradio AB is a new Swedish semiconductor supplier founded
in March 2004. They just announced a very low power 20 mm square Wi-Fi chip supporting 802.11b/g. Their target is the cellular handset and consumer
electronics market, but this might make a nice chip for a medical device component radio.
RF transceiver chip NRX510, with on chip RF PA and a CMOS baseband-MAC
chip NRX701, with onchip power management. NRX700 chipset is available
both as bumped die, NRX510 and NRX701, and in a system in package
solution (SiP) NRG720 including RF filters, baluns and antenna switch.
The power consumption for the NRX700 chipset is at +18 dBm RF output
only 130mA, during receive mode 53 mA and in standby 0,05mA. For module
manufacturers the NRX700 chipset offers a $1.50-$2.00 USD cost advantage in
the BOM [bill of materials] as well as reducing total footprint compared to any one chip
CMOS solution due to the integration of RF PA and power management into
the chipset and the overall small die size.
They are a “fabless” company where all
manufacturing is outsourced. Nanoradio focuses product design on
current consumption, physical size, and total cost. Nanoradio has a team of 50 people with extensive experience from the cellular and wireless industry as well as semiconductor industry and start-ups. Nanoradio’s unique low power WLAN chipset makes high speed wireless access possible in portable electronics
Sony Releases Medical Grade LCD Display
For years, Sony has tweaked existing products to provide “medical grade” products for health care. The lastest example is a medical grade display, with lots of bells and whistles.
matter from entering or exiting the unit to ensure that internal debris
cannot contaminate the sterile environment. The unit also complies with
VESA mounting standards and can be fixed to a surgical mount arm, which
makes it ideal for operating theatres.
In minimally-invasive procedures, such as endoscopy, the display in the
operating theatre is as important as the surgeon’s own eyes. If the
screen isn’t up to the job, then patient outcomes could suffer. This
latest monitor launch shows Sony is continuing to lead the way in the development of medical-grade display devices.
The SXGA (1280×1024 pixels) display offers 10-bit video signal processing and supports HDTV (1080i/720p). Sounds expensive.
Mediware Cuts 10 Percent of Staff
Cluster software vendor Mediware announced last Friday (the day after HIMSS) that their workforce would be reduced by 20 employees.
Before the cuts, the company (Nasdaq: MEDW) employed about 200 people,
including about 80 at its Lenexa headquarters. The filing did not
specify whether any cuts would come in the Lenexa site.
According to the filing, the cuts reflect decisions to centralize
various administrative resources in Lenexa and to reduce the number of
employees supporting a line of software that Mediware is phasing out.
Mediware sells systems for meds administration, operating room management, and blood bank. They posted a total of $36.6 million in revenue for fiscal year 2005. According to CEO James Burgess, Mediware is shifting resources to sales and marketing in order to support company growth.
2006 Virus and Spam Activity Starts with a Bang
The week before HIMSS I was at a client site when I got hit with an email virus. A thoughtful gentleman with a new market research report was sure I'd be interested in his email and attachments – totaling 1 MB. I received 135 of his missives the first day. I've received echos of this initial onslaught every day since, and it seems I'm not alone.
Security company Commtouch provides statistics on software virus and spam proliferation world wide. According to them, January was particularly bad:
The numbers are indeed concerning: 19 new
email-born significant virus attacks, of which a troubling 8 (42%) were
graded “low intensity”, 7 (37%) “Medium Intensity” and 4 (21%) were
massive attacks – a rare phenomenon for a single month.
One outbreak of specific interest, consisting of 7 variants,
illustrates how viruses are growing in sophistication: the first
variant was launched around December 25th as a low intensity virus,
however with subsequently released variants the attack's intensity grew
into a massive outbreak towards the end of the month.
FCC Beefs Up 802.11a with 11 New Channels
The FCC has added 255 megahertz of bandwidth, divided into 11 channels, to the 5 GHz 802.11a ISM band.
The new rules went into effect Jan. 20, and allow the use of 5.47 to
5.725 GHz—11 channels in the 802.11a version of Wi-Fi—with a couple of
key signal usage modifiers. The rule also changes the requirements for
the next-down stretch of spectrum, 5.25 to 5.35 GHz to conform to those
modifiers.
Both bands must now use dynamic frequency selection (DFS) to avoid
in-use spectrum, and transmit power control (TPC), which throttles
power to the minimum necessary for given communication. Older equipment
using 5.25 to 5.35 GHz is exempt, although one might expect
manufacturers to push out firmware upgrades. These requirements are
part of 802.11h, which extended 802.11a for legal European operation.
Interest in 802.11a has grown over the last year as both vendors and buyers have recognized the benefits of the virtually untapped band for voice over WLAN. I've heard from two medical device vendors who are developing radios that will support 802.11a. Sure 802.11b is the no-brainer for wireless medical devices today, but today's WLAN infrastructure will be obsolete and discontinued long before today's medical device is half way through its life cycle. No one really knows what the wireless environment will be like in 4 or 5 years – an option to use 802.11a could end up a real godsend.
