DECEMBER - 20208In My OpinionSometimes I wonder if I have chosen one of the most challenging and fascinating industries to work in. Overall, in terms of engineering, and specifically within embedded solutions. Let me give you an example. I love smartphones, but look at your phone. How often do you need to charge it? I bet you do that several times a day like I do. That scenario does not fly when it comes to hearing aids. Now, pick up your smartphone. It is probably the size of your entire hand or even larger, right? For obvious reasons, this battery life and size are unacceptable for our hearing aid users. We need to create hearing aids that people can rely on for 24 hours. And they need to have up to 12 hours of streaming time. Try that with your smartphone. And add to it that hearing aids can be as small as the tip of your finger. And it all boils down to the fact that we are not inventing technology for technology's sake. We are tirelessly focused on the customer experience to make life sound better.Solving the Puzzles of Conflicting DemandsMy colleagues and I work in a fascinating field of competing demands, where our technology has to become smaller and smaller, while accommodating ever-more connectivity, battery life, and individualized features for the human ear. Our ears are as unique as our fingerprints, so we are not in a one-size-fits-all business.We want to create a highly complex medical device and shrink all the components down to something as small as a shirt button that connects seamlessly and wirelessly to your smartphone, allowing you to stream all your phone calls during the day and stream the audio from all your favorite tv-shows in the evening ­ all with no charging from you wake up until you go to sleep. Our ApproachLooking at the chipsets, our challenge is that hearing aids are so small that you can't just use a standard chipset. That means that we need to invent and design our own chipset. That again then leads to another challenge; we need to create and develop our own operating system exclusively for our hardware platforms. We are constantly researching and developing chip technologies that cater to the size of the hearing aids and the available levels of EMBEDDED SOLUTIONS IN A FASCINATING WORLD OF COMPETING DEMANDSNish D Abeysiriwardena, Program Director, R&D Key Accounts, GN Hearing [CPH:GN]ByNish D Abeysiriwardena
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