Medical Monitors Benefit from Developmental Synergies with Semiconductor Industry

The evolution of semiconductors, which form an essential element in many patient monitoring systems, is being driven by the need for smaller, faster, and more advanced devices. These are the latest findings of GBI Research (London, United Kingdom), a market-leading provider of business intelligence reports.

Patient monitoring devices can track an individual’s blood pressure (BP), temperature, oxygen-saturation (SpO2), or respiration, and can also offer data conversion, processing, and controlling. Todo so, they use embedded semiconductors such as thin-film capacitors, resistors and substrate technologies, System-in-Package (SiP) integrated chip (IC) technology, as well as high-energy batteries, all of which are critically important for patient monitoring devices. The sale of semiconductors therefore increases as the demand for patient monitoring devices climbs.

The reverse is also true; developments in semiconductor technologies also mean leaps and bounds in progress for patient monitoring abilities, since small and portable patient monitoring devices represent an improvement in a patient’s quality of life, allow monitoring and treatment to be conducted in more convenient locations – at home or elsewhere. Semiconductor components are therefore steadily shrinking to meet this need, becoming more compact in order to downsize the monitoring equipment.

The miniaturization of patient monitoring devices via cutting-edge semiconductor technology opens the possibility of mounting equipment within mobile clinics, ambulances, and doctors’ offices. This in turn will is expected to lead to an increasing number of applications available in the various patient monitoring devices, such as fetal monitors, neonatal monitors, multiparameter patient monitoring, remote patient monitoring, and BP monitors. Application availability will further drive the already growing demand for telehealth monitoring services and wireless devices.

GBI Research therefore expects the market for semiconductors in patient monitoring devices to grow at a high rate over the next few years, from USD 1.8 billion in 2011 to USD 2.4 billion by 2015. The global market is expected to change significantly, with developing countries in Asia-Pacific emerging as a powerful rival to the matured market in North America.

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