We help keep people safe by ensuring that medicines are authentic and that perishable goods are safe to use. We're also working on new ways to bring sound to the hard of hearing, and to help doctors be more effective in emergencies.

Making sure medicines are authentic

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that up to 10% of the pharmaceuticals sold are not genuine. These counterfeit drugs can range from inactive, ineffective preparations to random mixtures of harmful toxic substances. NXP's ICODE family of high-frequency (HF) tagging ICs lets organizations authenticate the origin of a drug by tracing it through the complete supply chain.

Monitoring perishables for safe consumption

The global annual waste of perishable products - things like food, drinks, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, blood, and chemicals - amounts to around USD 35 billion. Using smart sensors to track these products on their journey from production to end user can eliminate a lot of that waste and can help ensure that perishable products are in fact safe to consume. Sensors placed on products and in shipping containers can measure the conditions that impact a product's longevity, including temperature, humidity, O2/CO2 concentration, pH balance, mechanical shock, and light intensity. When combined with a Radio Frequency (RF) ID device, real-time monitoring of these values becomes possible and can trigger alarms when readings become unsafe. Expiration dates can be dynamically estimated, based on actual physical conditions, and logistics can become more cost-efficient. NXP's industry-leading ICODE and UCODE families are used extensively in these kinds of smart-tag applications.

Helping people hear better

Studies show that roughly 10% of the world's population suffers from hearing impairments, but less than 2% wear a hearing aid. NXP has a breakthrough technology, based on magnetic induction, that makes hearing aids more effective and, as a result, may encourage more people to wear them. The approach is also much more energy efficient, so the battery lasts much longer, and poses less risk of tissue damage than conventional RF technologies. NXP's solution is currently being used by the Swiss company Phonak, a leading supplier of hearing systems, and is being evaluated for use in cochlear implants, which are surgically implanted devices that provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. Sometimes referred to as a bionic ear, cochlear implants provide direct electrical stimulation directly to the auditory nerves.

Acting quickly in an emergency

An emerging semiconductor technology, called "lab-ona- chip," promises to help medical professionals perform detailed tests faster and with smaller samples. NXP is part of one of these development projects, providing semiconductor technology that promises to help doctors quickly determine the blood clotting values of patients. Determining this value can make treatment more effective, especially in patients who have hemophilia (a condition that prevents the blood from clotting), or thrombosis (a condition where blood veins clog too quickly).