An Integrated Signal Acquisition AFE for Latency Quantification of ENG Signals

This paper covers the design and simulation results of an analog front-end (AFE) designed for capturing electroneurogram (ENG) signals. The AFE outputs a latency value that can be used by physicians to diagnose disorders affecting the nervous system such as muscular dystrophy. The latency value is calculated as the time between the peaks of two subsequent ENG triphasic responses. To extract an accurate latency, a set of filtering stages are required before the final processing stage. A Verilog analog-mixed signal (-AMS) model is constructed prior to the circuit design to examine the feasibility of the applied technic. The circuit designed and laid out in 0.18 μm TSMC Mixed Signal 5 V process and post-layout results demonstrate a 90 dB increase in the ENG amplitude achieved with a 0.92 mW power consumption showing the success of the filtering stages in removing unwanted noise such as stray electromyogram signals.