Seamless connectivity: universal asynchronous receiver and transmitter for implantable medical devices

Abstract

A recent surge of medical devices, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic, has played a vital role in monitoring and managing the need for treatment, either in vivo or in vitro. Ensuring seamless communication between an implanted medical device and the external environment is vital for a person’s overall well-being. The integration of a communication system with sensors and actuators enables the formation of a closed-loop system responsible for maintaining the desired state. This study investigates the suitability of a universal asynchronous receiver and transmitter (UART) for communication in implantable medical devices. The UART protocol is selected due to its advantage of allowing different frequencies for the receiver and transmitter, which facilitates communication between different peripheral devices and the core processing system. The proposed UART resulted in an area of 637.305 µm², a power dissipation of 3.2364 µW, and a critical path delay of 9.908 ps when implemented using 15 nm semiconductor technology. These findings indicate that it can be effectively used in implantable medical device applications where area and power constraints exist along with the need for high-speed operation.