Delta-Sigma Control Loop For Energy-Efficient Electrical Stimulation with Arbitrary-Shape Stimuli

Abstract

This paper presents a novel multi-channel stimulation backend with a multi-bit delta-sigma control loop, which enables precise adjustment of the stimulation current through modulation of the supply voltage. This minimizes the overhead voltage of series circuitry to the stimulation load and avoids the associated energy loss. Additionally, to address the bandwidth limitations commonly encountered in battery-less implants, we propose incorporating amplitude and duration scaling of the arbitrary stimulation waveform. The waveform is programmable with 64 7-bit samples and 4 scaling factors per channel, resulting in a minimum of 68% data reduction per channel compared to using the waveform without scaling. The proposed circuits are designed and simulated in 180nm BCD technology occupying a total silicon area of 9mm2. The fully integrated backend has a minimum compliance voltage of 8.5V and features a switched-capacitor multi-output DC-DC converter (MODDC) with pulse-skipping capability, a CMOS-only high-voltage (HV) multiplexer, and a unique HV H-bridge. Programming a sine-wave stimulus with a 4mA amplitude and a duration of 256μs achieved a signal-to-noise ratio of 40dB within a 10kHz bandwidth. For the same waveform, power efficiencies of 94% and 68% were observed without and with MODDC, respectively. Additionally, when programming constant-current stimuli ranging from 0.26mA to 4mA, high efficiencies of 78-97% and 23-79.4% were achieved without and with MODDC, respectively.