• hemodynamics
• microphone
• phonocardiography

The aim of this work is the development of a sensor for the acquisition of phonocardiogram (PCG).
This activity was performed in the Advanced System Technology (AST)- Remote Monitoring group of STMicroelectronics, which is involved in the study and development of wearable systems for the continuous collection of physiological parameters.
In this contest of work, sensor is purposely designed for a future integration with other external sensors in order to create a wearable monitoring system for the estimation of several hemodynamic parameters.
An analog MEMS microphone is used for acquiring PCG, which is amplified and sampled by a microcontroller ADC channel. Data are then transmitted to a smartphone application through a Bluetooth module.
Amplification, simulations, digital block, PCB layout strategy are presented and the main constraints, such as size, power consumption and integrability are discussed, as well as the consequent design choices. Package's characteristics are also described, in addition to the imple-
mented firmware.
During the test, S1 and S2 peaks are easily acquired with and without a synchronous ECG acquisition.
This device opens up new challenges to overcome in terms of wearability, hardware and software developments.