Medical Devices

img-medicalMedical devices help us live longer, better lives, but creating the software that empowers them presents some unique challenges to developers. Whether your product is to be deployed in a hospital or sold in a drug store for use at home, system failures are simply not an option when a person's health is at stake.

Your choice of software development platform hugely impacts your ability not only to get medical devices to market, but to do so profitably. Mentor Graphics' Nucleus OS and EDGE Developer Suite provide the solution, offering a proven, high performance and flexible software development platform which empowers a vast range of medical applications in use today.

Benefits

Reduced certification costs

When you build your Nucleus-based application, only those lines of code which are actually used get compiled into the final image. By ensuring code size is kept to a minimum, Nucleus OS can significantly reduce your certification costs, since certification effort is directly proportional to the lines of code being tested. And the certification process itself is simplified because source code is provided as standard for all Nucleus OS products.

A future proof solution that scales to meet your needs

While you may not need all of the capabilities of Nucleus OS today, you can be sure that as your products evolve, you will be able to draw upon a comprehensive range of integrated core services to accommodate each new requirement while maximizing the return on your existing software investment.

HIPAA compliant and IPv6 Ready™ for secure network-enabled medical applications

Nucleus OS is known for its secure, comprehensive and robust networking credentials. Wired or wireless, portable or not, Nucleus Networking Services (including 802.11 WiFi) offer everything you need to keep medical information private and inaccessible to prying eyes.

Proven in over 90 FDA Class II and Class III devices

Nucleus OS has been deployed in over 90 FDA Class II and Class III certified products, and has been selected as the software platform of choice by a wide range of medical device manufacturers including Bayer, Aspect Medical, Metran America, Analogic, ZOLL Medical Corporation, Plexar and many others.

Deliver more usable products in less time

Usability is essential for any product whose incorrect use could ultimately cost lives. Nucleus GUI Services incorporates an advanced menu-driven interface engine designed specifically with usability in mind. New user interfaces can be created, tested and refined in minutes within the EDGE Developer Suite, and all this can be done by graphic designers since all aspects of a GUI design may be modified visually without any coding or scripting.

Case Studies

"Nucleus OS has performed very well for our Convertible Ultrasound solution. Our development projects have taken advantage of the full-featured set of I/O packages (such as networking, USB and a file system) all of which utilize Mentor Graphics' cost effective products. A stable embedded OS, combined with access to source code and capable technical support engineers, has helped us to deliver our unique solution to the ultrasound community in a very timely manner."

Andy Irish, Director of Software, ZONARE Medical Systems, Inc.

ZOLL Medical Corporation

ZOLL Medical Corporation used Nucleus OS to develop ZOLL AED Plus – an automated external defibrillator.

Instrumentation Laboratory

Instrumentation Laboratory used Nucleus OS running on multiple processors to develop the ACL TOP blood analyzer.

Analogic Corporation

Analogic Corporation used Nucleus OS to develop FETALGARD Lite™ – a low-cost, modular, portable, antepartum fetal monitor.

ZONARE Medical Systems

ZONARE Medical Systems used Nucleus OS (including Nucleus Networking Services, Nucleus USB Services, and Nucleus File System Services) to develop z.one - the first Convertible Ultrasound platform.

Product List

Nucleus OS

  • Small footprint OS, fully functional at 12 K
  • Source code provided free to reduce regulatory compliance burdens
  • Deployed in billions of devices worldwide

HIPPA Compliant: Nucleus Networking Services

  • Healthcare IT department-compliant connectivity
  • TCP/UDP/IP networking stack
  • Support for IPv6
  • 802.11a/b/g
  • Security: SSL, 802.11i

Nucleus USB Services

  • USB 2.0 and hi-speed OTG certified by USB-IFUSB host, function, and OTG
  • Comprehensive class driver support
  • Mass Storage, Printer, Still Image, Communication, Video, Audio, and more

Nucleus Kernel Extensions

  • MMU for memory protection and security
  • DDL for dynamically adding features
  • POSIX, μiTRON support

Healthcare Compliant: Nucleus Storage & Database

  • Healthcare IT department compliant file systems
  • ISO9660, FAT, and FLASH support
  • IDE, SD, PCMCIA, CompactFlash, SATA, USB
  • Optimized for multitasking systems

EDGE Developer Suite

  • Eclipse-based IDE
  • Simulation environment ideal for automation
  • Customizable debugging environment (codelets)
  • Compilers

Embedded Industry Segments

Learn more about how Mentor Graphics' Embedded Software solutions.