A Scalable 1024-Channel Ultra-Low-Power Spike Sorting Chip With Event-Driven Detection and Spatial Clustering

Abstract

This article presents a 1024-channel ultra-low-power spike sorting chip featuring event-driven spike detection and spatial clustering for large-scale neural recording. To address power and scalability constraints in brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), the design integrates a compressive analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with a two-stage spike detector that significantly reduces memory and processing activity. Spatial features derived from high-density micro-electrode array (MEA) enhance cluster separability, enabling robust performance even under neural signal distortion or probe drift, particularly when recordings are obtained using planar MEAs. A modified self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm clusters spikes in the spatial domain with minimal memory access, supporting on-chip training and real-time operation with low latency. Fabricated in 40-nm CMOS, the chip achieves 0.00029-mm²/channel area and 74-nW/channel power consumption, with over 1000× data compression. Performance is validated across synthetic and ex vivo datasets containing up to 500 neurons, demonstrating competitive accuracy and robust drift tracking compared to state-of-the-art solutions with much lower data bandwidth, processing, and power demands.