A Chip Integrity Monitor for Evaluating Long-term Encapsulation Performance Within Active Flexible Implants

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Abstract

One key obstacle in employing silicon integrated circuits in flexible implants is ensuring a long-term operation of the chip within the wet corrosive environment of the body. For this reason, throughout the years, various biocompatible insulating materials have been proposed, yet, evaluating their long-term encapsulation performance on representative silicon samples still remains to be the main challenge. For this aim, in this work, a sensitive platform is introduced that can track the integrity of the chip against water and ion ingress. This platform is developed to be used for long-term monitoring of chip integrity and study of encapsulation layers in wet environments. The platform comprises a sensing array and a measurement engine and operates by tracking the changes in the inter-layer dielectric resistance within the chip. The proposed system uses a novel charge/discharge-based time-mode resistance sensor that can be implemented using simple yet highly robust circuitry. The sensor array is implemented together with the measurement engine in a standard 0.18 µm 6-metal CMOS process. For chip validation, dry and wet measurements in saline are presented in this paper.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 18 Oct 2019
EventBiomedical Circuits and Systems Conference 2019 - Nara, Japan
Duration: 17 Oct 201919 Oct 2019
https://biocas2019.org/

Conference

ConferenceBiomedical Circuits and Systems Conference 2019
Abbreviated titleBioCAS 2019
Country/TerritoryJapan
CityNara
Period17/10/1919/10/19
Internet address

Keywords

  • charge-discharge
  • Chip integrity
  • encapsulation
  • flexible implants
  • monitoring
  • reliability.
  • time-mode operation

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