6.1 12Mb/s 4×4 Ultrasound MIMO Relay with Wireless Power and Communication for Neural Interfaces

Ernest So, Amin Arbabian

Abstract: Neural interfaces, including retinal and brain implants, require increasing post-compression uplink data rates $\gt10$ Mb/s to send data from larger and denser recording arrays. In retinal implants, electrical recording data from large arrays can be leveraged to identify cell types, stimulation thresholds, and locations to construct better stimulation patterns. Among current uplink solutions, RF has the highest data rate but has limited depth inside the body for small transmitter (Tx) sizes [1, 2]. Galvanic solutions can achieve data rates $\sim10$ Mb/s [3] with low power and small form factor but have limited scaling in number of implants and data rate due to their omnidirectionality. Ultrasound (US) in implant applications can operate at depth with small transducers but has so far been limited to data rates <1 Mb/s [4, 5] due to power and area constraints.