Medtronic, Inc.

Medtronics, Inc.

Arch W Butler

Alain Minoz

Henrik E Pedersen

Malcolm G Williams

Thorir Gunnarsson

Malcolm G S Williams

An ambulatory recording system for medical and especially diagnostic purposes is described having synchronized communication between two processors. The recorder features two processors which are of differing architectures&mdash;the first processor being a real time processor which handles the sampling function, the second processor being a non real time processor which handles the operating system function. The invention further includes a protocol for communication between the two processors which permits the two processors to have synchronized and reliable communication.

Ambulatory recorder having synchronized communication between two processors

An ambulatory recorder having real time non-real time processors is described. The real time processor handles sampling functions while the non real time processor handles other functions, such as high processing operations associated with multitasking, graphical user interface, floating point calculation, Infra Red communication and long term memory storage. The second processor is primarily provided to operate a Windows CE operating system as well as one or more embedded applications. Through this design, electrical power provided by a battery is only consumed by those components essential to device operation at any particular time.

Ambulatory recorder having a real time and non-real time processors

An ambulatory recording system, for medical and especially diagnostic purposes, is described having a communication watchdog between two processors. The two processors may be of differing types. For example, the first processor may be real time processor ('RTP') which handles the sampling function, while the second processor may be a non real time processor ('NRTP') which handles the operating system function. This dual processor design permits relatively low power consumption for data recording (which is handled by the relatively lower power consuming RTP), while also providing a graphical user interface for user simple user operation (which is handled by the relatively higher power consuming NRTP). A communication watchdog between the two processors is provided to reset the device upon the detection of a processor failure or communication failure between the two processors.

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St. Louis Park, MN, United States of America

Arch W Butler