Design and implementation of low-power CMOS biosignal amplifier for active electrode in biomedical application using subthreshold biasing strategy

Abstract

Active Electrodes (AEs) are electrodes which have integrated bio-amplifier circuitry and are known to be less susceptible to motion artifacts and environmental interference. In this work, a low-power and high-input impedance amplifier for active electrode application is implemented based on subthreshold biasing strategies. In this proposed Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) device was versatile and numerical to achieve a high degree of programmability. It could be adapted to any other external part of one cochlear prosthesis, the sound analyzer that could be driven by a Digital Signal Processor (DSP). This research work also discusses the measurement of the electrode-skin impedance mismatch between two electrodes while concurrently measuring a bioelectrical signal without degradation of the performance of the amplifier, the efficient, noise-optimized analysis of bioelectrical signals utilizing two-wired active buffer electrodes. The reduction of power-line interference when using amplifying electrodes employing autonomous adaption of the gain of the subsequent differential amplification. The amplifier’s features include offset compensation, Common Mode Rejection Ratio (CMRR) improvement in software and a bandwidth extending down to DC. The proposed active electrode amplifier is designed using 90 nm CMOS technology. Simulation results exhibit up to the change in noise immunity and lessening in power utilization contrasted with the traditional bio-amplifier design at a similar delay.