Analog VLSI and neural systems
Analog VLSI and neural systems
A Low-Power Wide-Linear-Range Transconductance Amplifier
Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing
Analog versus digital: extrapolating from electronics to neurobiology
Neural Computation
Fast-response low-ripple envelope follower
Integration, the VLSI Journal
Design techniques for ASK demodulators of passive wireless microsystems: a state-of-the-art review
Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing
Transconductance enhancement in bulk-driven input stages and its applications
Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing
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Low-power wide-dynamic-range systems are extremely hard to build. The biological cochlea is one of the most awesome examples of such a system: It can sense sounds over 12 orders of magnitude in intensity, with an estimated power dissipation of only a few tens of microwatts. In this paper, we describe an analog electronic cochlea that processes sounds over 6 orders of magnitude in intensity, and that dissipates 0.5 mW. This 117-stage, 100 Hz to 10 KHz cochlea has the widest dynamic range of any artificial cochlea built to date. The wide dynamic range is attained through the use of a wide-linear-range transconductance amplifier, of a low-noise filter topology, of dynamic gain control (AGC) at each cochlear stage, and of an architecture that we refer to as overlapping cochlear cascades. The operation of the cochlea is made robust through the use of automatic offset-compensation circuitry. A BiCMOS circuit approach helps us to attain nearly scale-invariant behavior and good matching at all frequencies. The synthesis and analysis of our artificial cochlea yields insight into why the human cochlea uses an active traveling-wave mechanism to sense sounds, instead of using bandpass filters. The low power, wide dynamic range, and biological realism make our cochlea well suited as a front end for cochlear implants.