An Active Electrode for Vital Signal Acquisition With Accurately-Tunable Sub-Hz High-Pass-Corner Frequency and 164-mVpp Linear-Input-Range

An active electrode (AE) for vital signal acquisition with accurately-tunable Sub-Hz high-pass-corner frequency (f(HP)) has been proposed. Thanks to the proposed PVT-insensitive pseudo-resistor (PR) with embedded calibration circuit, the sub-Hz fHP of the AE can be accurately tuned by an external clock frequency. The AE is implemented in a standard 55nm CMOS process with a core area of 0.11 mm(2). The post-layout simulation results show that up to 310 G Omega of the PR value can be achieved. Compared with the conventional PR, the variation of the calibrated PR value is reduced by 3 decades within a temperature range of 0 to 85 degrees C under all process corners. Besides, the boot-strap technique improves the linear-input-range of the AE up to 164 mV(pp), demonstrating its potential capability to be applied to recording vital signals merged with large artifacts.

Automated summary

An active electrode (AE) with accurately-tunable Sub-Hz high-pass-corner frequency (f(HP)) has been proposed, utilizing a PVT-insensitive pseudo-resistor (PR). Implemented in a 55nm CMOS process, the AE has a small core area and stable performance under variations in temperature.