A Low Power Fully Intergrated RF Transceiver for Medical Implant Communication

This paper presents a fully integrated RF transceiver, capable of small form factor and ultra-low-power performance. The transceiver is achieved by employing LC-oscillator which has RF antenna as inductor components. The proposed receiver converts oscillation start-up time responding to input OOK signal to digital outputs, sensitively. The low complexity transmitter allows to improved implementation size and power efficiency with class-C operation. The transceiver was manufactured in 0.18 μm CMOS. The transceiver achieves a transmitter efficiency of 32.2% at -28.5 dBm EIRP while dissipating 2.2 mW and receiver sensitivity of -85 dBm in 25kbps OOK input. In experiments of implant condition replicated as human body, transceiver communicates to outside base station at 1m wireless and 8 cm implant depth.