Philips Applied Technologies has won a 2006 Medical Design Excellence Award (MDEA) as a key supplier to the winning product, Cochlear's Nucleus Freedom implant system at a ceremony at the Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) East 2006 Conference and Exposition, in New York City last night.

 

Philips has a long history of designing and supplying solutions for Cochlear, and the DSP speech processor chip for the Nucleus Freedom System is only one part of a long standing tradition of innovation in health sciences between the two companies.

 

Cochlear, an Australian-based world leader in hearing solutions, commissioned Philips to develop an ultra-low power speech processing chip, which delivers improved hearing performance and functionality to its next generation hearing solution. By designing this custom chip for the Cochlear's Nucleus Freedom system, Philips enabled the implant system to perform at its optimal level while minimizing battery power required.

 

"The laboratory has developed its competence in ultra-low power through adopting what can only be described as a holistic approach," says Johan Van Ginderdeuren, Business Development Manager of Philips Applied Technologies, Leuven.

 

"By concentrating on influencing all steps in a development process and all levels in the design hierarchy, we’re able to make major breakthroughs that in some instances can lead to orders-of-magnitude savings in the power consumption of a system."

 

The Philips chip also helps deliver an improvement in hearing performance by providing ample processing power. This allowed functionality such as a dual microphone adaptive beam former algorithm, a first for the industry, to be included in the Freedom system, helping cochlear implant users in noisy real-world situations.   "Cochlear has worked with Philips for many years now and the relationship continues to enable us to provide implant recipients with ongoing improvements to their hearing in real life situations," said Cochlear CEO, Dr Chris Roberts.

 

"Philips has been able to develop a custom made solution to our precise needs and really highlights that partnerships and shared expertise are crucial in our industry."

 

"Cochlear is excited to win this award and we are looking forward to continuing to work with Philips to provide even greater results for cochlear implant recipients in the future."

 

The Medical Design Excellence Awards (MDEA) competition is the premier awards program for the medical technology community, recognizing the achievements of medical product manufacturers and the many people behind the scenes —engineers, scientists, designers and clinicians— who are responsible for the groundbreaking innovations that are changing the face of healthcare. Cochlear is the global leader in innovative implantable hearing solutions.

 

Cochlear nominated Philips for being a valuable key partner in the development process. Only an elite group of companies are honored with the MDEA awards each year. For Philips Applied Technologies it is the second year in a row that the organization has been part of a team that has won this prestigious price. In 2005 Philips Applied Technologies won the award when contributing to the development of the Philips' TV-based personal healthcare platform Motiva™.

 

High resolution pictures:

  

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The use of the pictures is free but in publications the source of these pictures (Cochlear) must be mentioned.

 

• Philips rolls out its award-winning Ultra Low Power Technology into design services
• In the area of personal healthcare and vital-signs monitoring using ultra-low power wearable devices, Philips Applied Technologies contributed to a demonstration project called Field Lab directed at real-time, remote-controlled performance assessment of professional sports people.

 

Press inquiries please contact:

 

Philips Applied Technologies
Joost Maltha
Tel.: +31 (0) 40 27 48882
E-mail: joost.maltha@philips.com
www.apptech.philips.com