The Korean tech giant Samsung has announced one more interesting tech gadget, namely its new Bio-Processor as the company puts it. The new chip will be used in the growing number of wearable devices, which monitor health and fitness around the clock and will target people who use such devices on a daily basis.
“With improvements in smart, fitness devices and an increase in consumer health consciousness, more and more people are looking for ways to monitor various personal bio-data, or fitness data, to constantly manage their health” said Ben K. Hur, Vice President of marketing, System LSI business at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung’s Bio-Processor, which can process five different biometric signals, is the most versatile health and fitness monitoring chip available on the market today and is expected to open up many new health-based service options for our customers.”
Samsung’s Bio-Processor is more than this, though – this is the industry’s first all-in-one health solution processor. The chip integrates analog front ends (AFE), a microcontroller unit (MCU), a power management integrated circuit (PMIC), a digital signal processor (DSP) and 512 KB of eFlash memory. Based on an ARM Cortex-M4 technology with 256 KB of RAM, the processor can process bio-signals with no need for external processing parts. In addition the integration of all these parts into one chip allows the Bio-Processor to occupy just one fourth of the total combined size of all these elements, which makes it ideal for small wearable devices. The new chip can now measure body fat, skeletal muscle mass, the heart rate, the heart rhythm, skin temperature and stress levels. To do this the Samsung Bio-Processor integrates five AFEs including bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), photoplethysmogram (PPG), electrocardiogram (ECG), skin temperature, and galvanic skin response (GSR).
The new chip is now in mass production and will be available in various new fitness and health devices in H1 2016.
Source: Samsung