DSPs changing medical practice
Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) are transforming the way medicine is practiced around the world. (Image from Texas Instruments.)
It can take three years for, say, a TI design to make it from the foundry into a finished medical imaging product. The product has to be designed, built, win government approval, and then go to market.
But progress is now accelerating, as Marcia Barnett, DSP Communications executive for TI's medical imaging group, explained in a briefing today.
DSPs are letting TI help its customers create medical imaging devices that are mobile, less expensive and (thanks to software upgradeability) more flexible than ever before, she said.
This means device makers can reach new markets, in Latin America and Africa. It means U.S. patients can get ultrasound scans in clinics or offices, even at a disaster site when the wound is fresh.
More important, with TI and the universities or equipment companies it does business with creating new algorithms all the time, it means imaging equipment can be upgraded with a software download, so it lasts longer while it keeps improving.
The scans are also getting better. "We can now give clinically significant information in an ultrasound, enabling a better decision."
Algorithms using TI chips also allow for both 3D and even 4D imaging -- the fourth dimension is movement over time.
"The performance of the processor speeds the image analysis. You can look at it as faster images, real-time results. That's critical in a crisis, in triage or trauma. It also speeds diagnosis."
More, smaller, less expensive gear also means bigger chip sales for TI, by the way. TI sees 27% growth in the portable ultrasound market alone by 2012.
And less expensive equipment means less expensive in terms of power, as well. Ultrasounds that run on batteries, even handheld ultrasounds, are now being made available.
All this has a single root, the old DSP revolution being applied to medical imaging. Progress in this field takes time to develop, but it is developing. Which is both profitable and saves lives.
Good news with which to start your weekend.