A high‐voltage stimulation chip for wearable stroke rehabilitation systems

Abstract

SUMMARYIn this work, an 8-channel high-voltage (HV) stimulation chip for the rehabilitation of stroke patients through surface stimulation is presented. The chip receives control data through its serial peripheral interface and can be controlled by an external microcontroller. It can accordingly generate biphasic stimulation currents with different amplitudes, duration time, frequencies, and polarities for each channel independently. The chip was designed and fabricated using X-FAB 0.35 μm HV mixed-signal process. Circuits were carefully designed to ensure their operations under HVs. Our measurement results showed that a supply voltage of as high as 75 V can be achieved, and the current driver can generate biphasic stimuli with current amplitudes up to 4 mA.

A power‐efficient current‐mode neural/muscular stimulator design for peripheral nerve prosthesis

“…On the other hand, the tissue-electrode interface usually has high impedance, which requires large voltage compliance at the output stage of the stimulator to deliver large enough current to the load. 16,17 This paper presents an integrated power-efficient 16-channel neural/muscular stimulator by using a new technique to improve the PE. By theoretically analyzing and optimizing the PE of a current-mode stimulator, we find that exponential waveform is the ideal current waveform for stimulation.…”