Samsung's all-in-one Bio-Processor chip is all about health and fitness

Samsung Electronics has announced that it has started mass-production of the Bio-Processor, its latest all-in-one advanced system logic chip aimed at health-focused wearable products. It is the first chip that can take multiple measurements including body fat, skin temperature and heart rate as well as processor the information collected by itself.

The chip integrates five analogue front ends - one for each biometric signal - an (AFE), microcontroller unit (MCU), power management integrated circuit (PMIC), digital signal processor (DSP), and eFlash memory to process the bio-signals, it measures without the need of external processing parts.

The chip's five monitoring functions are: bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), photoplethysmogram (PPG), electrocardiogram (ECG), skin temperature, and galvanic skin response (GSR) to measure body fat, skeletal muscle mass, heart rate, heart rhythm, skin temperature and stress level.

Samsung is offering reference designs to other companies to demonstrate the chips capabilities. It states that the chip is designed to "allow accelerated development" of new fitness and health products. Samsung says that fitness wearable equipped with the Bio-processor will ship in the first half of 2016. 

"With improvements in smart, fitness devices and an increase in consumer health consciousness, more and more people are looking for ways to monitor various personal bio-data, or fitness data, to constantly manage their health. Samsung’s Bio-Processor, which can process five different biometric signals, is the most versatile health and fitness monitoring chip available on the market today and is expected to open up many new health-based service options for our customers." said Ben K. Hur, Vice President of marketing, System LSI business at Samsung Electronics.