Low-power, small-size, generic controller dedicated to implantable biomedical microsystems

This paper introduces a low-power and small-size generic controller that is designed to be used in bio-medical microsystems. Designed based on a CISC architecture with 26 instructions, the proposed controller supports a combination of tasks generally performed in implantable microsystems designed for the recording of bio-potentials as well as for the stimulation of living tissues and organs. The recording and stimulation functions supported by the controller cover a wide range of application conditions, from high spatial and temporal resolution to high channel density. The controller complies with system-level requirements for implantable microsystems such as low power consumption, small physical size, ease of integration with other parts of the system and serial communication with the outside world. Designed in a 0.13-μm standard N-Well CMOS technology, core layout of the controller measures 160μm×160μm. The controller was implemented on Xilinx® XC2S200 FPGA for functional verifications, and was tested successfully.