• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
• /
• v.14 no.5
• /
• pp.658-665
• /
• 2014

The neural stimulators have been employed to the visual prostheses system based on the functional electrical stimulation (FES). Due to the size limitation of the implantable device, the smaller area of the unit current driver pixel is highly desired for higher resolution current stimulation system. This paper presents a 16-channel compact current-mode neural stimulator IC with digital to analog converter (DAC) sharing scheme for artificial retinal prostheses. The individual pixel circuits in the stimulator IC share a single 6 bit DAC using the sample-and-hold scheme. The DAC sharing scheme enables the simultaneous stimulation on multiple active pixels with a single DAC while maintaining small size and low power. The layout size of the stimulator circuit with the DAC sharing scheme is reduced to be 51.98 %, compared to the conventional scheme. The stimulator IC is designed using standard $0.18{\mu}m$ 1P6M process. The chip size except the I/O cells is $437{\mu}m{\times}501{\mu}m$.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
• /
• v.27 no.6
• /
• pp.541-553
• /
• 2023

Retinal prostheses have shown some clinical success in restoring vision in patients with retinitis pigmentosa. However, the post-implantation visual acuity does not exceed that of legal blindness. The reason for the poor visual acuity might be that (1) degenerate retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) are less responsive to electrical stimulation than normal RGCs, and (2) electrically-evoked RGC spikes show a more widespread not focal response. The single-biphasic pulse electrical stimulation, commonly used in artificial vision, has limitations in addressing these issues. In this study, we propose the benefit of multiple consecutive-biphasic pulse stimulation. We used C57BL/6J mice and C3H/HeJ (rd1) mice for the normal retina and retinal degeneration model. An 8 × 8 multi-electrode array was used to record electrically-evoked RGC spikes. We compared RGC responses when increasing the amplitude of a single biphasic pulse versus increasing the number of consecutive biphasic pulses at the same stimulus charge. Increasing the amplitude of a single biphasic pulse induced more RGC spike firing while the spatial resolution of RGC populations decreased. For multiple consecutive-biphasic pulse stimulation, RGC firing increased as the number of pulses increased, and the spatial resolution of RGC populations was well preserved even up to 5 pulses. Multiple consecutive-biphasic pulse stimulation using two or three pulses in degenerate retinas induced as much RGC spike firing as in normal retinas. These findings suggest that the newly proposed multiple consecutive-biphasic pulse stimulation can improve the visual acuity in prosthesis-implanted patients.