There will be an ever-increasing demand for high-resolution brain machine interface devices in research, clinical, and also consumer applications. Such devices require advanced ASICs with high-density digital neural recording pixels to translate activities of large neuronal populations into '0' and '1's that can be precisely understood by computers. Oscillator-based neural recording circuits have become exceedingly popular by virtue of its advanctages in area-efficient implementation and its potentials to benefit from CMOS technology scaling. This project will be carried out on the basis of an oscillator-based neural recording pixel chip developed at imec. The pixel chip encodes neural potential signals into phase domain, and a phase-to-digital converter is needed next for digitization. In the first phase of the project, the student will develop a phase-to-digital converter using commercial off-the-shelf components, and build a complete neural recording channel with the pixel chip. In the second phase, the student will design and implement the phase-to-digital converter using custom CMOS integrated circuits, and to integrate the design with the existing neural pixel circuitry, and ultimately develop an ASIC with low power, small-area, oscillator-based digital neural recording pixel array.
Type of project: Internship, Thesis, Combination of internship and thesis
Duration: 6-12 months
Required degree: Master of Engineering Technology, Master of Science, Master of Engineering Science
Required background: Electrotechnics/Electrical Engineering
Supervising scientist(s): For further information or for application, please contact: Shiwei Wang (Shiwei.Wang@imec.be)
Imec allowance will be provided.
