A low-power low-noise CMOS amplifier for neural recording applications

There is a need among scientists and clinicians for low-noise low-power biosignal amplifiers capable of amplifying signals in the millihertz-to-kilohertz range while rejecting large dc offsets generated at the electrode-tissue interface. The advent of fully implantable multielectrode arrays has created the need for fully integrated micropower amplifiers. We designed and tested a novel bioamplifier that uses a MOS-bipolar pseudoresistor element to amplify low-frequency signals down to the millihertz range while rejecting large dc offsets. We derive the theoretical noise-power tradeoff limit - the noise efficiency factor - for this amplifier and demonstrate that our VLSI implementation approaches this limit by selectively operating MOS transistors in either weak or strong inversion. The resulting amplifier, built in a standard 1.5-μm CMOS process, passes signals from 0.025Hz to 7.2 kHz with an input-referred noise of 2.2 μVrms and a power dissipation of 80 μW while consuming 0.16 mm² of chip area. Our design technique was also used to develop an electroencephalogram amplifier having a bandwidth of 30 Hz and a power dissipation of 0.9 μW while maintaining a similar noise-power tradeoff.