THICK FILM HYBRID INTEGRATED CIRCUITS FOR MEDICAL INSTRUMENTATION

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the application thick film hybrid integrated circuits for medical instrumentation. Thick film techniques are appropriate for electronic instrumentation fabrication when miniaturization, high reliability, and cost-effective limited production are required. Medical instrumentation, especially those for human applications, quite often require high reliability and miniaturization. The technique described in the chapter is being used to manufacture thick film hybrid human motor activity recording monitors (MARMs) that are an extension of previously described type. A quartz crystal oscillator and frequency-divider circuit provide timing pulses to affect the storage of accumulated activity units during successive time intervals. At the termination of each summing interval marked by a timing pulse from the frequency divider, the contents of the accumulator are deposited into memory and the accumulator is reset to 0. The development of the MARM makes it possible to record detailed motoractivity profiles on psychiatric-ward patients or outpatients, permitting an accurate assessment of ultradian and circadian motor-activity rhythms.