An analog receiver front-end for capacitive body-coupled communication

• Published in: NORCHIP 2012 pp. 1 - 4
• Main Authors: Harikumar, P., Kazim, M. I., Wikner, J. J.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.11.2012
• Subjects: Attenuation; Biological system modeling; CMOS integrated circuits; Gain; Noise; Receivers; Topology
• ISBN: 1467322210; 9781467322218; 1467322229; 9781467322225
• DOI: 10.1109/NORCHP.2012.6403137

This paper presents an analog receiver front-end design (AFE) for capacitive body-coupled digital baseband receiver. The most important theoretical aspects of human body electrical model in the perspective of capacitive body-coupled communication (BCC) have also been discussed and the constraints imposed by gain and input-referred noise on the receiver front-end are derived from digital communication theory. Three different AFE topologies have been designed in ST 40-nm CMOS technology node which is selected to enable easy integration in today's system-on-chip environments. Simulation results show that the best AFE topology consisting of a multi-stage AC-coupled preamplifier followed by a Schmitt trigger achieves 57.6 dB gain with an input referred noise PSD of 4.4 nV/√Hz at 6.8 mW.