Pulse oximetry systems for measuring constituents of circulating blood have gained rapid acceptance in a wide variety of medical applications, including surgical wards, intensive care and neonatal units, general wards, home care, physical training, and virtually all types of monitoring scenarios. A pulse oximetry system generally includes an optical sensor applied to a patient, a monitor for processing sensor signals and displaying results and a patient cable electrically interconnecting the sensor and the monitor. The monitor may be specific to pulse oximetry or may be a multi-parameter monitor that has a pulse oximetry plug-in. A pulse oximetry sensor has light emitting diodes (LEDs), typically one emitting a red wavelength and one emitting an infrared (IR) wavelength, and a photodiode detector. The emitters and detector are typically attached to a finger, and the patient cable transmits drive signals to these emitters from the monitor. The emitters respond to the drive signals to transmit light into the fleshy fingertip tissue. The detector generates a signal responsive to the emitted light after attenuation by pulsatile blood flow within the fingertip. The patient cable transmits the detector signal to the monitor, which processes the signal to provide a numerical readout of pulse oximetry parameters such as oxygen saturation (SpO2) and pulse rate.