Design of a Compact Wireless Multi-Channel High Area-Efficient Stimulator with Arbitrary Channel Configuration

Yuwei Zhang; Deng Luo; Ting Ou; Zhangyi Yuan; Heng Huang; Ling You; Yin Yue; Milin Zhang; Dongmei Li; Guolin Li; Kexin Yuan; Zhihua Wang

doi:10.3390/mi9010006

Design of a Compact Wireless Multi-Channel High Area-Efficient Stimulator with Arbitrary Channel Configuration

Micromachines (Basel). 2017 Dec 27;9(1):6. doi: 10.3390/mi9010006.

Authors

Yuwei Zhang¹, Deng Luo², Ting Ou³, Zhangyi Yuan⁴, Heng Huang⁵, Ling You⁶, Yin Yue⁷, Milin Zhang⁸, Dongmei Li^{9

10}, Guolin Li¹¹, Kexin Yuan¹², Zhihua Wang¹³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Rohm Building, Beijing 10084, China. zhangyw15@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn.
² Institute of Microelectronics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 10084, China. luod14@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn.
³ Institute of Microelectronics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 10084, China. ot15@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn.
⁴ Institute of Microelectronics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 10084, China. zy-yuan16@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn.
⁵ Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Rohm Building, Beijing 10084, China. huanghen16@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn.
⁶ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. youl16@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn.
⁷ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. yuey17@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn.
⁸ Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Rohm Building, Beijing 10084, China. zhangmilin@tsinghua.edu.cn.
⁹ Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518057, China. lidmei@tsinghua.edu.cn.
¹⁰ Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Rohm Building, Beijing 10084, China. lidmei@tsinghua.edu.cn.
¹¹ Institute of Microelectronics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 10084, China. guolinli@tsinghua.edu.cn.
¹² Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. kexinyuan@tsinghua.edu.cn.
¹³ Institute of Microelectronics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 10084, China. zhihua@tsinghua.edu.cn.

Abstract

This paper presents the design of a wireless, implantable, multi-channel, programmable stimulator with arbitrary channel combination. A novel channel management module using a switch array is presented, enabling arbitrary channel configuration with a silicon area reduction of 81%. The chip was fabricated in a 0.18- μ m Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company (TSMC) high voltage (HV) complementary metal⁻oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. A stimulator system was realized using the proposed integrated circuit (IC). A wireless communication link was established between a specified Android-based graphical user interface (GUI) and the proposed device for control of the stimulation pattern and wireless battery charging. The size of the entire system occupies a volume of only 14 mm × 14 mm × 4 mm (without the battery). Experimental results demonstrated a successful independent configuration between different channels, as well as an arbitrary channel combination, as expected.

Keywords: arbitrary channel combination; functional electrical stimulation; implantable medical device; multi-channel neural stimulator; programmable current generator.