AVS 65th International Symposium & Exhibition
    Manufacturing Science and Technology Group Tuesday Sessions
       Session MS+MN-TuA

Invited Paper MS+MN-TuA9
The Unique Challenges Implantable Sensor Manufacture

Tuesday, October 23, 2018, 5:00 pm, Room 202B

Session: IoT Session: Challenges of Sensor Manufacturing for the IoT
Presenter: Kimberly Chaffin, Medtronic plc
Authors: K. Chaffin, Medtronic plc
S. Terry, Medtronic plc
Correspondent: Click to Email
Sensors onboard today’s implantable medical devices monitor the critically ill and trigger the delivery of life sustaining and saving therapies. As medicine moves from retrospective treatment to predict and prevent, a transition enabled, in part, by the Internet of Things (IoT), sensors will no longer only be operational in the critically ill, but in all of us. In the future, sensors will have the sole purpose of measuring physiological signs and providing patient centric feedback to prevent future events. Setting aside the psychological challenges of receiving a long-term implant for prevention, this transition to prevent and predict is making the medical device industry rethink sensor manufacture, where the device-biological interface is one of several critical factors. The current design paradigm of isolating implantable device circuitry from the biological environment in hermetic titanium cans, largely limiting the signal to electrical feedthroughs, must shift to allow for new sensor modalities. Chemical sensors must detect biomarkers unhindered by the immune response that accompanies every implant. Optical sensors must ‘see’ into the body. Pressure sensors must employ sensitive diaphragms where the internal device pressure must remain constant and the fibrotic capsule formation associated with the immune response must not dampen sensitivity. In this talk, we will review the critical manufacturing technologies being developed for implantable sensors that predict and prevent.