An emerging approach that replaces OTAs with more power-efficient comparators is shown in Figure 12b (80). Here, instead of driving the output with an OTA, the current source charges it until the comparator's input voltage ramps to zero. Subsequently, the comparator trips, and the current source is disabled with the output at 2VIN. As mentioned in Section 3.2.1, the nonlinear comparator can be implemented far more efficiently and its performance scales more favorably with advanced technologies. Other ADC architectures have also been mapped to pipelined stages for enhanced conversion rate; in Reference 81, for instance, time-based conversion and processing are performed at each stage without OTAs, increasing the performance of integrating ADCs.
3.3. Communication Transceivers
The communication subsystem allows a biomedical device to send and receive information to and from other devices. This information can serve as commands, such as configuration instructions, or data, such as samples from a sensor. For many basic applications, the communication link can be realized with a wired connection. Two existing wired applications are the connection between a pacemaker to its pacing leads and the connection between a pulse oximeter and a finger-mounted sensor (1). Due to the limitations of wired links, wireless communication is the dominant method of communication for biomedical devices.
The primary method of wireless communication is via electromagnetic waves through the air, either via low-frequency, near-field inductive coupling or higher-frequency, far-field wireless transmission. An alternate, emerging approach is to use the human body as a transmission medium (82). These systems typically involve attaching electrodes to a user's skin that communicate via electrostatic coupling (83), electromagnetic waves (84), or electrooptic conversion (85). This section focuses on electromagnetic communication. However, the low-power techniques described can be applied to all communication systems, regardless of the transmission media.
3.4.1. Near-field electromagnetic wireless communication.Near-field communication operates on the principle of electromagnetic induction between two nearby coils, and is nearly identical to the concept of wireless power transfer described in Section 3.1.1. A key difference, however, is that while power transfer forms a unidirectional link, data transfer is often bidirectional, consisting of a forward and a reverse link. For implanted systems where one side of the communication link is volume and energy constrained, the forward link can consist of a high-powered transmitter that transmits both power and data, whereas the reverse link transmits only data. Due to the volume and energy constraints facing implanted systems, near-field communication links are typically limited in range to a few centimeters.
One example application of near-field communication is for data and power transfer from an external cochlear speech processor to its associated implanted stimulator (86). This application requires data rates on the order of 1 Mbps and a distance of only a few centimeters, operating at carrier frequencies such as 49 MHz (87). For emerging biomedical applications, such as neurostimulators and artificial retina, higher data rates are required. To support such high data rates using near-field communication, the wireless link requires higher bandwidths, necessitating lower-quality factor antenna coils. Data rates up to 2.5 Mbps have been demonstrated using coherent frequency shift keying with carrier frequencies of 5 and 10 MHz (88). An alternative method to achieve high data rates is via far-field electromagnetic wireless communication.
3.4.2. Far-field electromagnetic wireless communication.To realize high data rates at communication distances longer than a few centimeters, far-field electromagnetic communication is preferable to near-field communication. Far-field communication links for biomedical devices operate at carrier frequencies of hundreds of megahertz and above. The majority of low-power wireless transceivers are half-duplex where data transmission and reception do not occur simultaneously, and thus there is a transmit/receive switch connecting either the transmitter or receiver to the antenna.
Wireless standards.A key trend in far-field wireless communication is the emergence of standards that ensure coexistence or interoperability between devices. Early biomedical devices used ad-hoc, propriety communication protocols with only basic coexistence support. As biomedical devices become more prevalent, these proprietary radios are becoming less practical and more expensive than standards-compliant radios. Key low-power standards for biomedical devices are MICS, WMTS, Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15.1), and Zigbee (IEEE 802.15.4). Of these standards, Bluetooth and Zigbee require interoperability, whereas MICS and WMTS only require coexistence.
Energy-efficient circuits and systems.All