The February 28, 2022 online edition of Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry (MDDI) features Best Practices for Designing Miniaturized Medical Devices by Diego A. Sorrentino, M.A.Sc., P.Eng., Electrical Engineering Manager at StarFish Medical. The article provides best practices for designing miniature medical devices from an electrical engineering perspective.
Sorrentino shares his experience from working with small printed circuit boards (PCBs) and offers three tips that can help medtech innovators with the challenges of prototyping miniature products. Discussing handling and interaction, and the challenge of extracting or injecting signals into small PCBs, he advises: “An obvious and yet sometimes overlooked solution […] is to spin a larger form factor PCB that implements the same architecture as the intended miniature device.” Boundaries of both component miniaturization and fabrication process will likely be pushed as well. “A good development strategy during the early prototyping phase is to use the critical components, PCB features, and fabrication processes intended for the final device.” Ultimately, he turns to space as a key consideration in prototyping. Sorrentino suggests the use of Rigid-Flex PCBs as they “offer a flexible and space-efficient way to interconnect circuits eliminating the need for cables and connectors”.
Diego A. Sorrentino is Electrical Engineering Team Lead at StarFish Medical. He received his BEng (Hons) Electrical Engineering from the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology, and his M.A.Sc Electrical Engineering from UVic. When not reducing medical device energy consumption, he sails and plans to get a pilot’s license.