Ultra-Low-Power Radio Microphone for Cochlear Implant Application

This paper presents a 2.45-GHz complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) ultra-low-power transmitter suitable for cochlear implant application. This system will be energy self-efficient and be put in an 8 $,\times,$ 6 $,\times,$ 6 ${\hbox {mm}}^{3}$ small volume. The entire system will be consuming less than 1 mA under 1.2 V supply for an output power range from ${- 10}~{\rm dBm}$ to 0 dBm. Implemented in a 130 nm CMOS standard process, the first radio microphone prototype burns 1.6 mW for a ${- 2}~{\rm dBm}$ output power.