A Multimodal Neural-Recording IC With Reconfigurable Analog Front-Ends for Improved Availability and Usability for Recording Channels

In this work, we present an 8-channel reconfigurable multimodal neural-recording IC, which provides improved availability and usability of recording channels in various experiment scenarios. Each recording channel changes its configuration depending on whether the channel is assigned to record voltage or current signal. As a result, although the total number of channels is fixed by design, the channels utilized for voltage and current recording can be set freely and optimally for given experiment targets, scenarios, and circumstances, maximizing the availability and usability of recording channels.The proposed concept was demonstrated by fabricating the IC using a standard 180-nm CMOS process.Using the IC, we successfully performed an
in vivo
experiment from the hippocampal area of a mouse brain. The measured input noise of the reconfigurable front-end is 4.75 μV
_rms
at voltage-recording mode and 7.4 pA
_rms
at current-recording mode while consuming 5.72 μW/channel.