One of the goals of the Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program in the United States and of similar programs around the world is to develop an interface able to read from one million neurons in parallel. This is well beyond the capabilities of traditional multi-electrode arrays (MEAs), which are inherently limited in both spatial resolution and number of channels, due to issues with power dissipation and wiring.1, 2 To overcome these roadblocks our group has proposed a novel optrode array that measures electrical activity and uses light for both signal transduction and transmission, thus decoupling the bio-potentials from the signal acquisition circuitry.3 The technology relies on the sensitivity of a particular class of liquid crystals (LCs) to small electric fields and is analogous to a LC display, where the intensity of each pixel (optrode, in our case) is controlled by the electrical activity of the biological tissue. Here, we present the first use of such a transduction mechanism to record from cardiac tissue and investigate stimulus artifact suppression in rabbit sciatic nerve. Our results pave the way to the development of high-density high-channel-count optrode arrays for electrophysiology studies and brain-machine interfaces.
Nerve conduction and activity is a marker of disease and wellness and provides insight into the complex way the nervous system encodes information. We propose an electro-optical detection system and show the recordings from an electrically stimulated in-vitro nerve preparation. The system converts the action potential at the probing position to light intensity before any amplification and detection. Thence the light signal is detected by a photodetector. The new detection system has the ability of isolating the probing point and the amplification circuits, which reduces the electrical interference from the circuit. Moreover, the sampled signal transmitted via optical fibres rather than cables or wires makes it more robust to environmental noise. From the experiment, we demonstrated that the electro-optical detection system is able to detect and amplify the nerve response. By analysing the data, we can distinguish the response from the stimulus artifact and calculate CAP (compound action potential) propagation speed.
There has been many low-swing on-chip interconnect signaling techniques introduced to tackle the problem of inverse-scaling
effect of on-chip wires. This paper proposes a comparison framework using SPICE-based simulations on the
90nm technology node, which is needed to assess the effectiveness of a certain interconnect technique over the others
with a high degree of objectiveness and accuracy. Two low-swing techniques are included in the comparison, i.e.
conventional level converter (CLC) and current-mode signaling (CM). These techniques were chosen to represent
different driver and receiver topologies, where CLC uses lower driver supply voltage, while CM has a low impedance
termination at receiver end. In addition, an optimized full-swing repeater-based technique is included as a baseline for
comparison. The main contribution of this paper is the identification of circuit and wire design parameters that affects
performances the most, leading to a design guideline with reduced set of design variables for delay or energy
optimization of each technique. A simplified repeater performance estimation technique considering ramp input signals
is also proposed. Furthermore, trade-off between energy and delay using the optimization processes has been explored,
resulting in a more objective comparison of different interconnect techniques in the power-delay space. Results show
that optimized CLC (reduced voltage supply) repeaters can perform better in both terms of delay and power in its design
performance range.
KEYWORDS: Transceivers, Signal attenuation, Telecommunications, Endoscopes, Computer architecture, Amplifiers, Image resolution, Monte Carlo methods, Systems modeling, Pulse generators
This paper introduces an Ultra-Wideband (UWB) transceiver for in-vivo biotelemetry applications, especially for
wireless endoscope. A system modeling, simulation and design trade-off analysis for an UWB impulse radio transceiver
is presented that incorporates the human body attenuation effect, the IEEE 802.14a indoor channel model, and channel
noise to determine an optimum architecture for the given applications. Based on the system simulation using Matlab, the
severe effect from the human body attenuation has been identified and a non-coherent Transmit Reference (TR)
Transceiver architecture with differential Binary Phase Shift Keying (DBPSK) modulation was selected as the best
option for a communication link in biotelemetry applications. The transceiver consists of an all-digital transmitter with
H-bridge output stage type of Pulse Generator (PG), wideband inductorless resistive shunt feedback Low Noise
Amplifier (LNA) with thermal noise canceling, Gilbert mixer, Integrator, decision detector and Variable Delay
Controller (VDC). The performance characteristics of the PG, LNA and mixer are presented by the circuit simulation
results using 0.18μm digital CMOS technology.
Conference Committee Involvement (4)
Microelectronics: Design, Technology, and Packaging III
5 December 2007 | Canberra, ACT, Australia
Biomedical Applications of Micro- and Nanoengineering III
11 December 2006 | Adelaide, Australia
Microelectronics: Design, Technology, and Packaging II
12 December 2005 | Brisbane, Australia
Biomedical Applications of Micro- and Nanoengineering II
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