A 0.6V, 1μW, low-power low-noise instrumentation amplifier for ECG/BioZ measurement in 40nm CMOS

This thesis presents a low-power low-noise instrumentation amplifier designed to be implemented in 40 nm CMOS technology and operating from a 0.6 V supply, intended for use in electrocardiogram (ECG) and bio-impedance (BioZ) signal acquisition. This instrumentation amplifier has one ECG channel, one BioZ channel and allows both signals to be measured at the same time. The core of the system is an AC-coupled instrumentation amplifier. A DC servo-loop is applied to handle large differential electrode offset (>300 mV) and a positive feedback loop is used to boost the input impedance (>100 MΩ). This instrumentation amplifier achieves low noise (<1 μVrms over a bandwidth 150 Hz), large CMRR (>100 dB) while only consuming 1 μW power. The instrumentation amplifier has a noise efficiency factor (NEF) of 2.4 and it occupies only 0.1 mm2 chip area.
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Microelectronics