128-channel spike sorting processor with a parallel-folding structure in 90nm process

An emerging class of neural prostheses aims to provide more aggressive performance by realizing advanced realtime signal processing algorithms in particular the spike sorting on chips. To support realtime spike sorting for 128 channels, the traditional fully parallel approach duplicating 128 processing units results in a large burden on chip area. The fully folding approach sharing one processor over 128 channels consumes large dynamic power in data caching. We propose to use the parallel-folding structure to optimally tradeoff the area and power. Our 128-channel spike sorting processor consumes 1.36 mm² area and 1.87 mW power in 90 nm process. 91.1% and 63.4% of the hardware resources (areatimespower) are reduced compared to the fully parallel and the fully folding approaches respectively.