Miniaturizing technology is a perpetual challenge for manufacturers of portable devices. The smaller the device, the better its portability. The thing is, that usually comes at the expense of battery life. However, Silicon Labs hopes its latest xG27 chipset will be small and power-efficient enough to spark some big ideas in the medtech space, like a saliva reader that’s so small it can be mounted on a tooth. .
According to Silicon Labs, the xG27 family of SoCs consists of the BG27 and MG27. Both are built around the ARM Cortex M33 processor, but the BG27 focuses on Bluetooth, while the MG27 supports Zigbee and other protocols. As for how small these chips are, the xG27 SoCs range from 2mm square to 5mm square, about the width of the tip of an n. #2 to the width of the pencil. It’s not the world’s smallest Bluetooth chip, but Silicon Labs spokesman Sam Ponedal says the edge that’s just by “fractions of a millimeter”.
This is great from a technical perspective, but what’s even cooler is that the BG27 is currently being used to develop an actual product: the tooth-mounted wearable sensor mentioned above. Lura Health, a medical device maker, says it is using the chip for its “salivary diagnostic sensor.” The sensor is small enough to be glued to a molar (or placed inside a “smart retainer”) with the intent of continuously monitoring a patient’s saliva. That, in turn, would allow dentists and doctors to test for potentially more than 1,000 health conditions.
This wouldn’t be the first time a company has come up with this type of futuristic health technology. But while most attempts are thwarted by the FDA regulatory process, Lura Health says it has just completed clinical trials of the sensor with UConn Orthodontics and is currently preparing to go through the FDA regulatory process. If all goes well, the product could be on the market in 12-18 months.
As for other use cases, Silicon Labs says its chips are good candidates for medical patches, continuous glucose monitors, and portable EKGs. This is because they can operate on as little as 0.8 volts and can switch to a “shelf mode” which reduces energy use during transport and while being stored on shelves. These features are not as attractive in consumer handheld devices, but they open the door for greater use of handheld devices in hospitals and clinical settings.
