A low-power mixed-signal IC for implantable pacemakers is presented. The proposed system features three independent intracardiac signal readout channels with pulse-width-modulated outputs. Also, the proposed system is capable of measuring the amplitude and phase of the bioimpedance with pulse-width-modulated outputs for use in rate adaptive pacemakers. Moreover, a stimulation system is embedded, offering 16 different amplitudes from 1 to 7.8?V. A backscattering transmitter transfers the output signals outside the body with very little power consumption. The proposed low-power mixed-signal IC is fabricated in a 0.18-?m HV CMOS process and occupies 2.38 mm2. The biopotential channels extract the heart signals with 9.2 effective number of bits and the bioimpedance channels measure the amplitude and phase of the heart impedance with 1.35 ?<formula><tex>$_{rms}$</tex></formula> accuracy. The complete IC consumes only 4.2??A from a 1-V power supply.@en

There is an increasing demand for low power, low voltage, and small size analog readout bio-potential systems. This paper presents an analog front-end for measuring the intra-cardiac signals in implantable and also external ambulatory ECG cardiac recording applications. The analog front-end benefits from voltage to frequency conversion without conventional analog to digital conversion and thereby achieves a very low power consumption. The frequency averaging digital reconstruction makes an intrinsic low pass filter of which the cut-off frequency changes with the averaging interval and eliminates the need for an analog filter in this system. Furthermore, this feature enables the development of a general purpose analog readout bio-potential measurement system with programmable bandwidth. The proposed IC is fabricated in a 0.18 μm CMOS process and occupies 0.396 mm2. It can measure intra-cardiac bio-potentials with 9.2-bit resolution while consuming just 0.5 μA per channel from a 1 V supply. The input referred noise of the intra-cardiac signal readout channel is 2 μVrms.@en

This paper presents an implantable bio-impedance measurement system for cardiac pacemakers. The fully integrated system features a lowpower analog front-end and pulse widthmodulated output. The bio-impedance readout benefits from voltage to time conversion to achieve a very low power consumption for wirelessly transmitting the data outside the body. The proposed IC is fabricated in a 0.18μmCMOSprocess and is capable ofmeasuring the bio-impedance at 2 kHz over a wide dynamic range from 100λ to 3.3 kλ with 1.35 λrms accuracy and 1 μA maximum current injection while consuming just 1.55 μA from a 1 V supply.@en