Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 30

cal devices, telecom applications, automotive,
etc. Rapid production, higher
circuit speed, assembly automation, lower
cost, higher density, design flexibility,
and improved performance are the important
features of the SMT assembly
process that support the extensive usage
of SMT PCBs in electronic applications.
SMT Assembly for Healthcare
Systems
Healthcare systems have grown tremendously
in the field of patient care.
Monitoring devices like blood pressure
monitors and pulse oximeters are compact
and lightweight because SMT PCBs
are used in such medical equipment. Increasing
demand for consumer products
like smartphones and smartwatches are
driving growth in the telecom industry.
Compact and flexible products are also
possible because of the development of
the SMT PCB assembly process.
Several growing trends in the SMT process
include building fast and flexible assembly
lines, efficient and easily upgradable
assembly setup, etc. But assembly
service providers are also focusing on developing
environmentally friendly PCB
manufacturing units. There are compliance
requirements included in the SMT
assembly process to develop a green line
for PCB assembly.
SMT for PCB assembly makes miniaturization,
versatility, and extended operations
possible in the PCB industry. Electronic
design automation tools have
improved the design for manufacturability
(DfM) software that helps PCB designers
to build industry-standard products.
The PCB assembly process of complex
circuits has become faster and easier due
to the automated SMT assembly lines.
Customer satisfaction has been achieved
by consistent and high-quality SMT PCB
manufacturing, and contract manufacturers
have built cutting-edge assembly
units to capture the growing market of
SMT PCB products.
This article was written by Ken Ghadia,
Senior Sales Engineer, TechnoTronix
Inc., Anaheim, CA. For more information,
visit www.technotronix.us. Contact:
keng@technotronix.us.
Helmet Made of Magnetic Metamaterials Could
Improve Brain Scans
The wearable
metamaterial could help
make MRI scans crisper,
faster, and cheaper.
Boston University
Boston, MA
It may look like a bizarre bike helmet,
or a piece of equipment found in Doc
Brown's lab in Back to the Future, yet this
gadget made of plastic and copper wire is
a technological breakthrough with the
potential to revolutionize medical imaging.
Despite its playful look, the device is
actually a metamaterial, packing in a ton
of physics, engineering, and mathematical
know-how.
It was developed by Xin Zhang, a College
of Engineering professor of mechanical
engineering, and her team of
scientists
at BU's Photonics
Center.
They're experts in metamaterials, a type
of engineered structure created from
small unit cells that might be unspectacular
alone, but when grouped together
in a precise way, get new superpowers
not found in nature. Metamaterials, for
instance, can bend, absorb, or manipulate
waves-such as electromagnetic
waves, sound waves, or radio waves.
Each unit cell, also called a resonator, is
typically arranged in a repeating pattern
in rows and columns; they can be
designed in different sizes and shapes,
30
Now, Zhang and her team have
taken their work a step further with
the wearable metamaterial. The
dome-shaped device, which fits over
a person's head and can be worn
during a brain scan, boosts MRI performance,
creating crisper images
that can be captured at twice the
normal speed.
Ke Wu, a PhD student in BU's department of mechanical
engineering, demonstrates a new magnetic
metamaterial device intended to be used in conjunction
with MRI machines to boost the quality of brain
scans. (Credit: Cydney Scott)
and placed at different orientations, depending
on which waves they're designed
to influence.
Metamaterials can have many novel
functions. Zhang, who is also a professor
of electrical and computer engineering,
biomedical engineering, and materials
science and engineering, has designed
an acoustic metamaterial that blocks
sound without stopping airflow (imagine
quieter jet engines and air conditioners)
and a magnetic metamaterial that can
improve the quality of magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) machines used for
medical diagnosis.
www.medicaldesignbriefs.com
The helmet is fashioned from a series
of magnetic metamaterial resonators,
which are made from 3D
printed plastic tubes wrapped in
copper wiring, grouped on an array,
and precisely arranged to channel
the magnetic field of the MRI machine.
Placing the magnetic metamaterial
- in helmet form or as the
originally designed flat array-near
the part of the body to be scanned,
says Zhang, could make MRIs less
costly and more time efficient for doctors,
radiologists, and patients - all
while improving image quality.
Eventually, the magnetic metamaterial
has the potential to be used in conjunction
with cheaper low-field MRI machines
to make the technology more widely available,
particularly in the developing world.
This work is supported by the National
Institutes of Health.
This article was written by Jessica Colarossi,
Boston University. For more information,
visit https://www.bu.edu.
Contact: jrcola@bu.edu.
Medical Design Briefs, September 2022
http://www.technotronix.us https://www.bu.edu http://www.medicaldesignbriefs.com

Medical Design Briefs - September 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Medical Design Briefs - September 2022

Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - Cov1A
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - Cov1B
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - Cov1
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - Cov2
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 1
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 2
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 3
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 4
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 5
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 6
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 7
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 8
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 9
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 10
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 11
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 12
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 13
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 14
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 15
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 16
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 17
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 18
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 19
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 20
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 21
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 22
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Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 24
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 25
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 26
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 27
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 28
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 29
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 30
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 31
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Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 33
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 34
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 35
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 36
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 37
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 38
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Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 41
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - 42
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - Cov3
Medical Design Briefs - September 2022 - Cov4
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https://www.nxtbook.com/smg/techbriefs/21MDB12
https://www.nxtbook.com/smg/techbriefs/21MDB11
https://www.nxtbook.com/smg/techbriefs/21MDB10
https://www.nxtbook.com/smg/techbriefs/21MDB09
https://www.nxtbook.com/smg/techbriefs/21MDB08
https://www.nxtbook.com/smg/techbriefs/21MDB07
https://www.nxtbook.com/smg/techbriefs/21MDB06
https://www.nxtbook.com/smg/techbriefs/21MDB05
https://www.nxtbook.com/smg/techbriefs/21MDB04
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