Medical

According to the United Nations prediction, the proportion of the world's population over 65 years old will reach 1/6 by 2050. The demand for early diagnosis keeps rising with the increase of aged population, which will inevitably lead to the shortage of medical infrastructure and the aggravated contradiction between supply and demand of medical services. So the innovation of medical devices has become an inevitable trend. The combination of advanced hardware and software technologies plays an important role in early diagnosis and later treatment. Hardware in medical devices such as analog devices, discrete devices, memory, micro components, optoelectronic devices and sensors is made by semiconductors, which improve reliability, accuracy, precision and portability of medical devices and make a great contribution to the human health.

Common Semiconductor Medical Devices

Semiconductors are used in medical devices to help people diagnose and treat diseases. Common semiconductor medical devices are as follows.

• Medical semiconductor coolers

Semiconductor refrigeration technology, also known as thermoelectric refrigeration technology, mainly uses the Peltier effect in thermoelectric effect to achieve the purpose of refrigeration. Semiconductor refrigeration technology plays an important role in medical semiconductor coolers. Medical semiconductor coolers are composed of single chip microcomputer system, temperature sensor measurement system, semiconductor cooler system and liquid crystal display (LCD) system^[1]. They have the following characteristics.

• Wearable medical devices

Nowadays, wearable medical devices are becoming more and more popular with the increase of people's health awareness such as medical wristbands, oxygen saturation monitors, sleep trackers, electrocardiogram sensors, heart health monitors, blood pressure monitors and others. Wearable medical devices have advantages of high sensitivity, small size, low power consumption and low cost. These advantages rely on the development of semiconductor chips such as radio frequency chips, memory chip and sensor chips.

• Semiconductor radiation detectors

Compared with other types of detectors, applications of semiconductor radiation detectors in radiation medicine have been growing dramatically during the last decade. They have many advantages such as small size, outstanding energy resolution in nuclear spectroscopy, easy pixilation for high spatial resolution and ability of integration with readout electronics. Semiconductor materials are used as detection media in semiconductor radiation detectors. For example, CdTe and CdZnTe semiconductors with wide band gap and high atomic number have attracted increasing interest in recent years as detection media in medical detectors^[2].

In the future, semiconductors will gradually change the medical industry, making diagnosis and treatment more convenient for both patients and doctors.

What Can We Do?

As a globally renowned semiconductor supplier, Alfa Chemistry has the ability to supply superior-quality semiconductor materials for medical device manufacturing companies around the world. Our company promises "reasonable price, short production cycle, good service" to customers. Looking forward to cooperating with you.

References

1. Yuqi, D.; et al. Design and implement of the medical semiconductor cooler. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering. 2020, 768.
2. Stefano Del, S.; et al. Progress in the development of CdTe and CdZnTe semiconductor radiation detectors for astrophysical and medical applications. Sensors. 2009, 9: 3491-3526.