On the reduction of thermal and flicker noise in ENG signal recording amplifiers

Abstract

Because of the extremely low amplitude of the input signal, the design of electro-neuro-graph (ENG) amplifiers involves a special care for flicker and thermal noise reduction. The task becomes really challenging in the case of implantable electronics, because power consumption is restricted to few hundreds μW. In this work, two different circuit techniques aimed to reduce flicker and thermal noise, in ultra-low noise amplifiers for implantable medical devices, are demonstrated. The circuit design, and measurement results are presented, in both cases showing an excellent performance, and noise to power consumption trade-off. In the first circuit, a very simple low-pass G_m–C chopper amplifier is used for flicker noise cancellation. It consumes only 28 mW, with a measured input referred noise and offset of 2  ${{{\text{nV}}} \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{{\text{nV}}} {\sqrt {{\text{Hz}}} }}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {\sqrt {{\text{Hz}}} }}$, and 2.5 μV, respectively. In the second circuit, a ultra-low noise amplifier, a energy-efficient DC–DC down-converter, and low voltage design techniques are combined, for the reduction of thermal noise with a minimum power consumption. Measured input referred noise in this case was 5.5 ${{{\text{nV}}} \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{{\text{nV}}} {\sqrt {{\text{Hz}}} }}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {\sqrt {{\text{Hz}}} }}$ at only 380 μW power consumption. Both circuits were fabricated in a 1.5 μm technology.