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A low-noise fully-differential CMOS preamplifier for neural recording applications

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Abstract

A fully-differential bandpass CMOS preamplifier for extracellular neural recording is presented in this paper. The capacitive-coupled and capacitive-feedback topology is adopted. We describe the main noise sources of the proposed preamplifier and discuss the methods for achieving the lowest input-referred noise. The preamplifier has a midband gain of 43 dB and a DC gain of 0. The −3 dB upper cut-off frequency of the preamplifier is 6.8 kHz. The lower cut-off frequency can be adjusted for amplifying the field or action potentials located in different bands. It has an input-referred noise of 3.36 μVrms integrated from 1 Hz to 6.8 kHz for recording the local field potentials (LFPs) and the mixed neural spikes with a power dissipation of 24.75 μW from 3.3 V supply. When the passband is configured as 100 Hz-6.8 kHz for only recording spikes, the noise is measured to be 3.01 μVrms. The 0.115 mm2 prototype chip is designed and fabricated in 0.35-μm N-well CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) 2P4M process.

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Correspondence to Xu Zhang.

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Zhang, X., Pei, W., Huang, B. et al. A low-noise fully-differential CMOS preamplifier for neural recording applications. Sci. China Inf. Sci. 55, 441–452 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-011-4333-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-011-4333-5

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