An energy-efficient baseband transmitter design for implantable biotelemetry applications

Design of implantable wireless telemetry is challenging due to strictly-limited allowable power budgets. The design of wireless prototypes becomes even more challenging due to the need for rice-grain-sized autonomous devices with enhanced useful life. This paper elaborates on the design and implementation of a second-generation prototype of a baseband (BB) transmitter (TX) proposed for use in next-generation body area networks (BANs), with an implementation targeted in TSMC´s 65 nm Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) process. The proposed BB TX utilizes a preamble-based asynchronous packet transmission methodology that can potentially meet the energy-efficiency demands of next-generation BANs (below 500pJ/bit). A comparison of the implemented integrated circuit (IC) with the first-generation prototype reveals an improvement of 88% in power consumption. The proposed design requires 1.3mW of power at a supply voltage of 0.9V with an energy efficiency of 144pJ/bit.