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Active and Passive Electronic Components
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 472306, 10 pages
doi:10.1155/2012/472306
Design Optimization of Transistors Used for Neural Recording
Electrical Engineering Department, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA 95192-0084, USA
Received 16 July 2011; Revised 5 October 2011; Accepted 18 October 2011
Academic Editor: Mingxiang Wang
Copyright © 2012 Eric Basham and David Parent. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Neurons cultured directly over open-gate field-effect transistors result in a hybrid device, the neuron-FET. Neuron-FET amplifier circuits reported in the literature employ the neuron-FET transducer as a current-mode device in conjunction with a transimpedance amplifier. In this configuration, the transducer does not provide any signal gain, and characterization of the transducer out of the amplification circuit is required. Furthermore, the circuit requires a complex biasing scheme that must be retuned to compensate for drift. Here we present an alternative strategy based on the design approach to optimize a single-stage common-source amplifier design. The design approach facilitates in circuit characterization of the neuron-FET and provides insight into approaches to improving the transistor process design for application as a neuron-FET transducer. Simulation data for a test case demonstrates optimization of the transistor design and significant increase in gain over a current mode implementation.