New wireless communication devices enabled by Analog Devices' iCoupler digital isolator technology remotely monitor, manage, and control multiple medical devices

This new family of network servers has been specifically designed to meet the stringent regulatory and safety standards associated with the healthcare industry, including IEC-60601-1, EN 6061-1-2 and UL 6061-1. ADI’s patented digital isolator technology provides a distinct advantage including galvanic isolation that isolates and protects the EDS server and other connected medical devices in the event of a grounding mishap.



“Lantronix helps physicians, nurses, diagnosticians and hospital administrators develop more effective ways to manage patient care, whether through remote monitoring or data collection,” said Daryl Miller, Vice President of Engineering for Lantronix. “Because of the healthcare industry’s rigorous safety and reliability standards, we adopted ADI’s iCoupler digital isolator technology to help deliver vital data faster, more securely and more efficiently to healthcare professionals so they can make better informed decisions about their patients’ care.”



According to an ABI Research study, revenue from sales of Wi-Fi-enabled healthcare products worldwide will total close to $5 billion in 2014. This represents an increase of nearly 70 percent over today’s figure. With $20 billion allocated in the US stimulus bill for the digitising of medical records, and an emphasis on a comprehensive reform of the healthcare industry at large, attention is focused as never before on the opportunities for wireless communications in healthcare.



About the iCoupler digital isolator products in the EDS-MD devices

The EDS-MD family of communication servers use many channel configurations of iCoupler digital isolators from Analog Devices. By selecting these digital isolators over optocoupler based solutions, Lantronix saw an improvement in data rates over previous generations, lowered overall system cost through a reduction in board size and component count all while increasing long term reliability of their servers.



iCoupler Technology

As the global leader in digital isolation, ADI's proven iCoupler digital isolator technology is based on chip-scale transformers, rather than on the LEDs and photodiodes found in optocouplers. Transformers support higher data rates, consume less power, and are more stable over life compared to LEDs and photodiodes. By fabricating the transformers directly on-chip using wafer-level processing, iCoupler digital isolation channels can be integrated with each other and other semiconductor functions at low cost. iCoupler digital isolator transformers are planar structures formed from CMOS and gold metal layers.



A high-breakdown thick polyimide layer underneath the gold layer insulates the top transformer coil from the bottom coil, resulting in the most reliable and highest level of digital isolation available. CMOS circuits connected to the top coil and bottom coil provide the interface between each transformer and its external signals. With more than half a billion channels deployed, ADI's iCoupler digital isolator technology has been designed into hundreds of applications, such as USB isolation in patient monitors, where it allows hospitals and physicians to adopt the latest advances in computer technology to supervise patient health and wirelessly transmit medical records without compromising patient safety.