Jerald Yoo received his Ph.D. degree in Department of Electrical Engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea, in 2010. He is currently an assistant professor of Microsystems Engineering, Masdar Institute, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. He opened the door for circuits and systems for wearable healthcare using Planar-Fashionable Circuit Board (P-FCB). His research focuses on low energy circuit technology for wearable bio signal sensors, wireless power transmission, and SoC design to system realization. He is an author of a book chapter in Biomedical CMOS ICs (Springer, 2010). Dr. Yoo is a co-recipient of the Asian Solid-State Circuits Conference (A-SSCC) Outstanding Design Awards in 2005.

Abstract

Healthcare is a promising sector for semiconductor industry. Currently, chronic diseases account for over 1/3 of deaths around the world. To mitigate the impact of the diseases, healthcare paradigm is now shifting from reactive illness management towards proactive and preemptive healthcare.

In this tutorial, we will cover two topics of biomedical microsystem design under the umbrella of wearable healthcare. We will begin with circuit design strategy for energy-efficient biomedical sensors. Both analog front-end and digital back-end will be shown with examples. We will then move on to wearable Body Area Network (BAN) for continuous health monitoring environment. Two types of Wearable BAN (wireless and wired) and their various circuit aspects will be thoroughly reviewed. Low energy circuit techniques to overcome their limitations will also be discussed. Finally, several examples of wearable healthcare system implementation will be presented.