Advances in Neural Recording and Stimulation Integrated Circuits.

Juzhe Li,Hao Yu,Tao Chen,Wei Mao,Xu Liu

doi:10.3389/fnins.2021.663204

Abstract

In the past few decades, driven by the increasing demands in the biomedical field aiming to cure neurological diseases and improve the quality of daily lives of the patients, researchers began to take advantage of the semiconductor technology to develop miniaturized and power-efficient chips for implantable applications. The emergence of the integrated circuits for neural prosthesis improves the treatment process of epilepsy, hearing loss, retinal damage, and other neurological diseases, which brings benefits to many patients. However, considering the safety and accuracy in the neural prosthesis process, there are many research directions. In the process of chip design, designers need to carefully analyze various parameters, and investigate different design techniques. This article presents the advances in neural recording and stimulation integrated circuits, including (1) a brief introduction of the basics of neural prosthesis circuits and the repair process in the bionic neural link, (2) a systematic introduction of the basic architecture and the latest technology of neural recording and stimulation integrated circuits, (3) a summary of the key issues of neural recording and stimulation integrated circuits, and (4) a discussion about the considerations of neural recording and stimulation circuit architecture selection and a discussion of future trends. The overview would help the designers to understand the latest performances in many aspects and to meet the design requirements better.

Highlights

INTRODUCTIONThe neural prosthesis chip for biomedical use includes the neural/muscular stimulators and neural recording circuits
OF NEURAL RECORDING AND STIMULATION CIRCUITSThe neural prosthesis chip for biomedical use includes the neural/muscular stimulators and neural recording circuits
The stimulator has been widely used in biomedical applications for decades, such as cardiac pacemaking, cochlear/retinal prosthesis, and cell activation (Chen et al, 2010; Sooksood et al, 2011; Noorsal et al, 2012; Wagner et al, 2018; Lee and Im, 2019; Lin and Ker, 2020; Yen and Ker, 2020)

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The neural prosthesis chip for biomedical use includes the neural/muscular stimulators and neural recording circuits. The supply voltage needs to ensure the minimum necessary voltage level applicable for various loads, to achieve the required power efficiency Other stimulation methods such as switched-capacitor stimulation (SCS) can control the amount of stimulus charge better and achieve higher power efficiency. When VE is detected to be out of the reference voltage range at the end of each stimulation cycle, a series of short-time pulses will control the switch for charge compensation to recover the VE voltage level (Sooksood et al, 2010). The input of the circuit is directly connected to the gate of the MOSFET, which has a large input impedance and improves the recording stability Another new architecture uses a continuous-time delta-sigma modulator (CTDSM) as the recording front end (RFE), and the researcher establishes the structure based on a secondorder CTDSM (Nikas et al, 2019). Technology (nm) Stimulation type Supply voltage (V) Power source Safe voltage detection

Inductive link

Findings

DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION