For a portable medical equipment manufacturer there are a few primary concerns. Typically it is desirable to design a small, inexpensive device that is going to have a small PCB as a result. Also it should be a battery operated device that can last as long as possible between battery changes or battery charges. And the components must integrate functionality, to reduce the number of components on the PCB. The manufacturer is also going to look for a microcontroller that has an efficient instruction set so that the amount of flash memory that is used can be minimized, along with some of the other characteristics that were mentioned. These are the types of applications where the TI MSP430 should be considered.