Implantable patient chip]

Currently, enormous innovative developments are taking place in the area of micro-electronics. In particular, advances in the sector of chip card controller ICs make it appear possible to quickly implement theoretical applications which, only just a few months ago would have been considered utopian and would have ended up gathering dust in the developer's drawer. The present paper describes a technical possibility, so far not implementable in practice, for always having personal emergency data available. Only a year or two ago any idea of implanting electronic circuitry employing memory modules would have been immediately dropped again. At the present state of development in the area of microelectronics, however, structures measuring less than 5 microns in length have become a matter of routine, and a personal memory chip in biotolerable packaging and measuring no more than about (5 x 5 x 1) mm3 can now be implanted subcutaneously. At the present time, further application based on the use of the same technological facilities, such as, for example, the cyclic recording and storage of the heart rate, are under discussion.