Mixed bio-signal lossless data compressor for portable brain-heart monitoring systems

This paper presents a highly integrated VLSI implementation of a mixed bio-signal lossless data compressor capable of handling multichannel electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocardiogram (ECG) and diffuse optical tomography (DOT) bio-signal data for reduced storage and communication bandwidth requirements in portable, wireless brain-heart monitoring systems used in hospital or home care settings. The compressor integrated in a multiprocessor brain-heart monitoring IC comprises 15 k gates and 12 kbits of RAM, occupying a total area of 58 k μm² in 65 nm CMOS technology. Results demonstrate an average compression ratio (CR) of 2.05, and a simulated power consumption of 170 μW at an operating condition of 24 MHz clock and 1.0 V core voltage. Nominal power savings of 43% and 47% at the transmitter can be achieved when employing Bluetooth and Zigbee transceivers, respectively.