A Sub-10 nA DC-Balanced Adaptive Stimulator IC With Multi-Modal Sensor for Compact Electro-Acupuncture Stimulation

A compact electro-acupuncture (EA) system is proposed for a multi-modal feedback EA treatment. It is composed of a needle, a compact EA patch, and an interconnecting conductive thread. The 3 cm diameter compact EA patch is implemented with an adaptive stimulator IC and a small coin battery on the planar-fashionable circuit board (P-FCB) technology. The adaptive stimulator IC can form a closed current loop for even a single needle, and measure the electromyography (EMG) and the skin temperature to analyze the stimulation status as well as supply programmable stimulation current (40 μA-1 mA) with 5 different modes. The large time constant (LTC) sample and hold (S/H) current matching technique achieves the high-precision charge balancing ( <;10 nA) for the patient´s safety. The measured data can be wirelessly transmitted to the external EA analyzer through the body channel communication (BCC) transceiver for the low power consumption. The external EA analyzer can show the patient´s status, such as the muscle fatigue and the change of the skin temperature. Based on these analyses, the practitioner can adaptively change the stimulation parameters for the optimal treatment value. A 12.5 mm² 0.13 μm RF CMOS stimulator chip consumes 6.8 mW at 1.2 V supporting 32 different current levels. The proposed compact EA system is fully implemented and tested on the human body.