Intestinal cancer is a massive problem. With 40,000 new cases of bowel cancer and 1500 new small intestine cancer cases in the UK alone each year, and 15,000 bowel cancer deaths. The Sonopill's potential to see early signs of disease below the intestinal surface offers the potential for earlier diagnosis and consequently more successful treatment, resulting in longer life and greater quality of life for patients. This to my mind is a very clear justification for the work I and my colleagues are are doing, and the funding the project receives from the British taxpayer.

My role is designing the digital section of the Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) which lies at the heart of the Sonopill capsule. ASIC development is a slow process. The design stage takes months of intensive and meticulous work with Cadence software, which is not exactly user-friendly. Chip fabrication runs take place only four times a year, and there is a delay of several months between submission and receiving chip samples for testing. A significant fault or bug in the chip can require reiteration of the whole process. The run-up to a chip deadline is demanding and stressful, and monthly project meetings in stuffy rooms which seem to drag on for longer than time itself don't help either. However the satisfaction of taking on a difficult and challenging chip design problem, testing the chip and seeing it working is enormous. Overall I find the project interesting and rewarding, and have the added bonus of working with an excellent group of colleagues.

First published: 18 August 2017

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