A Low Power MICS Band Phase-Locked Loop for High Resolution Retinal Prosthesis

Ultra low power dissipation is essential in retinal prosthesis and many other biomedical implants. Extensive research has been undertaken in designing low power biomedical transceivers, however to date, most effort has been focused on low frequency inductive links. For higher frequency, more robust and more complex applications, such as Medical Implant Communication Service (MICS) band multichannel transceivers, power consumption remains high. This paper explores the design of micro-power data links at 400 MHz for a high resolution retinal prosthesis. By taking advantage of advanced small geometry CMOS technology and precise transistor-level modeling, we successfully utilized subthreshold FET operation, which has been historically limited to low frequency circuits due to the inadequate transistor operating speed in and near weak inversion; we have implemented a low power MICS transceiver. Particularly, a low power, MICS band multichannel phase-locked loop (PLL) that employs a subthreshold voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) and digital synchronous dividers has been implemented on a 65-nm CMOS. A design methodology is presented in detail with the demonstration of EKV model parameters extraction. This PLL provides 600- mVpp quadrature oscillations and exhibits a phase noise of -102 dBc/Hz at 200-kHz offset, while only consuming 430- μW from a 1-V supply. The VCO has a gain (KVCO) of 12 MHz/V and is designed to operate in the near-weak inversion region and consumes 220- μA DC current. The designed PLL has a core area of 0.54 mm2. It satisfies all specifications of MICS band operation with the advantage of significant reduction in power which is crucial for high resolution retinal prosthesis.

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