Detailed Description
The MAX86140/MAX86141 are complete integrated opti-
cal data acquisition systems, ideal for optical pulse
oximetry and heart rate detection applications. Both parts
have been designed for the demanding requirements of
mobile and wearable devices and require minimal external
hardware components are necessary for integration into
a wearable device. They include high-resolution, optical
readout signal processing channels with robust ambient
light cancellation and high-current LED driver DACs to
form a complete optical readout signal chain.
The MAX86140/MAX86141 are fully adjustable through
software registers and the digital output data is stored
in a 128-word FIFO within the IC. The FIFO allows the
MAX86140/MAX86141 to be connected to a microcontroller
or processor on a shared bus, where the data is not being
read continuously from the MAX86140/MAX86141’s
registers. Both operate in fully autonomous modes for low
power battery applications.
The MAX86140 consists of a single optical readout channel,
while the MAX86141 incorporates dual optical readout
channels that operate simultaneously. Both parts have
three LED drivers and are well suited for a wide variety of
optical sensing applications.
The MAX86140/MAX86141 operate on a 1.8V main
supply voltage, with a separate 3.1V to 5.5V LED driver
power supply. Both devices have flexible timing and shut-
down configurations as well as control of individual blocks
so an optimized measurement can be made at minimum
power levels.
Optical Subsystem
The optical subsystem in the MAX86140/MAX86141 is
composed of ambient light cancellation (ALC), a continu-
ous-time sigma-delta ADC, and proprietary discrete time
filter. ALC incorporates a proprietary scheme to cancel
ambient light generated photodiode current, allowing
the sensor to work in high ambient light conditions. The
optical ADC has programmable full-scale ranges of 4μA
to 32μA. The internal ADC is a continuous time overs-
ampling sigma delta converter with 19-bit resolution.
The ADC output data rate can be programmed from
8sps (samples per second) to 4096sps per channel. The
MAX86140/MAX86141 includes a proprietary discrete
time filter to reject 50Hz/60Hz interference and changing
residual ambient light from the sensor measurements.
The MAX86140/MAX86141 supports Dynamic Power
Down mode (Low-Power mode) in which the power
consumption is decreased between samples. This mode
is only supported for sample rates 128sps and below. For
more details on the power consumption at each sample
rates, refer to the Electrical Characteristics table.
LED Driver
The MAX86140/MAX86141 integrates three precision LED
driver-current DACs that modulate LED pulses for a
variety of optical measurements. The LED current DACs
have 8-bits of dynamic range with four programmable
full-scale ranges of 31mA, 62mA, 94mA, and 124mA. The
LED drivers are low dropout current sources, allowing for
low-noise, power-supply independent LED currents to be
sourced at the lowest supply voltage possible; therefore
minimizing LED power consumption. The LED pulse width
can be programmed from 14.8μs to 117.3μs to allow the
algorithms to optimize SpO
2
and HR accuracy at the lowest
dynamic power consumption dictated by the application.
FIFO Conguration
The FIFO is 128 sample depth and is designed to support
various data types, as shown in Table 2. Each sample
width is 3 bytes, which includes a 5-bit tag width. The
tag embedded in the FIFO_DATA is used to identify the
source of each sample data. The description of each Tag
is as shown in Table 3.
LED Sequence Control (address 0x20 ~ 0x22)
The data format in the FIFO, as well as the sequencing of
exposures, are controlled by the LED Sequence Registers
through LEDC1 through LEDC6. There are six LED
Sequence Data Items available, as shown in Table 1. The
exposure sequence cycles through the LED Sequence
bit fields, starting from LEDC1 to LEDC6. The first LED
Sequence field set to NONE (0000) ends the sequence.
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Maxim Integrated
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MAX86140/
MAX86141
Best-in-Class Optical Pulse Oximeter and
Heart-Rate Sensor for Wearable Health