ADI aims ECG chip at consumer health monitors

Analog Devices is targeting consumer body monitor designs with a heart-rate monitor analogue front end (AFE).
The AD8232 AFE is designed to meet the ECG signal conditioning requirements of emerging fitness, portable/wearable monitoring and remote health monitoring equipment.

"The intention has been to create a device which supports a range of heart rate and ECG monitoring applications ranging from consumer style fitness monitors to remote health management devices," Jan-Hein Broeders of Analog Devices told Electronics Weekly.
A feature of the front-end chip is its two-pole, high-pass filter that is tightly coupled with the IC’s instrumentation amplifier architecture, and an uncommitted operational (gain) amplifier that enables the user to employ multi-pole low pass filtering techniques to remove line noise and other interference.
There is a reference buffer, right leg drive circuit and shutdown function.
The AD8232 also includes user-selectable (AC or DC) leads-off detect circuitry that monitors when an electrode is disconnected from the patient or user, providing an alert to the system.
It has a fast-restore mode that automatically recovers the cardiac signal in the event a user temporarily loses contact with an electrode during exercise, or other activity, greatly improving the quality of the end-user experience. 
According to Broeders, the AD8232 can accommodate electrode DC offsets while operating on a single supply voltage without sacrificing performance or signal quality.
“The chip’s analogue can be paired with either a discrete A/D converter or a microcontroller with an embedded A/D converter, which provides system designers with the flexibility,” said Broeders.
Supply current is 180µA and noise figure is 20µVp-p (0.5Hz to 40Hz). The chip is available in a 4 x 4mm, 20-pin LFCSP package.