An inductively powered implantable blood flow sensor microsystem for vascular grafts

Jia Hao Cheong, Simon Sheung Yan Ng, Xin Liu, Rui Feng Xue, Huey Jen Lim, Pradeep Basappa Khannur, Kok Lim Chan, Andreas Astuti Lee, Kai Kang, Li Shiah Lim, Cairan He, Pushpapraj Singh, Woo Tae Park, Minkyu Je

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

61 Scopus citations

Abstract

Monitoring blood flow rate inside prosthetic vascular grafts enables an early detection of the graft degradation, followed by the timely intervention and prevention of the graft failure. This paper presents an inductively powered implantable blood flow sensor microsystem with bidirectional telemetry. The microsystem integrates silicon nanowire (SiNW) sensors with tunable piezoresistivity, an ultralow-power application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), and two miniature coils that are coupled with a larger coil in an external monitoring unit to form a passive wireless link. Operating at 13.56-MHz carrier frequency, the implantable microsystem receives power and command from the external unit and backscatters digitized sensor readout through the coupling coils. The ASIC fabricated in 0.18-μm CMOS process occupies an active area of 1.5 × 1.78mm2 and consumes 21.6 μW only. The sensors based on the SiNW and diaphragm structure provide a gauge factor higher than 300 when a small negative tuning voltage (-0.5-0V) is applied. The measured performance of the pressure sensor and ASIC has demonstrated 0.176 mmHg/√Hz sensing resolution.

Original languageEnglish
Article number6213087
Pages (from-to)2466-2475
Number of pages10
JournalIEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering
Volume59
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012

Keywords

  • Blood flow monitoring
  • implantable biomedical IC
  • inductively powered
  • passive telemetry
  • piezoresistive sensor
  • sensor interface IC
  • silicon nanowire (SiNW)
  • successive approximation register analog-to-digital converters (SAR ADC)

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