A 128-Channel FPGA-Based Real-Time Spike-Sorting Bidirectional Closed-Loop Neural Interface System

A multichannel neural interface system is an important tool for various types of neuroscientific studies. For the electrical interface with a biological system, high-precision high-speed data recording and various types of stimulation capability are required. In addition, real-time signal processing is an important feature in the implementation of a real-time closed-loop system without unwanted substantial delay for feedback stimulation. Online spike sorting, the process of assigning neural spikes to an identified group of neurons or clusters, is a necessary step to make a closed-loop path in real time, but massive memory-space requirements commonly limit hardware implementations. Here, we present a 128-channel field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based real-time closed-loop bidirectional neural interface system. The system supports 128 channels for simultaneous signal recording and eight selectable channels for stimulation. A modular 64-channel analog front-end (AFE) provides scalability and a parameterized specification of the AFE supports the recording of various electrophysiological signal types with 1.59 ± 0.76 $\mu {V}$ root-mean-square noise. The stimulator supports both voltage-controlled and current-controlled arbitrarily shaped waveforms with the programmable amplitude and duration of pulse. An empirical algorithm for online real-time spike sorting is implemented in an FPGA. The spike-sorting is performed by template matching, and templates are created by an online real-time unsupervised learning process. A memory saving technique, called dynamic cache organizing, is proposed to reduce the memory requirement down to 6 kbit per channel and modular implementation improves the scalability for further extensions.