A high acuity retinal stimulator in 65 nm CMOS process

This book presents a design of a flexible stimulator in 65 nm Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) as part of a 1024-electrode epiretinal prosthesis to restore partial vision in patients suffering from eye diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular degradation (AMD).The stimulator design is to support as many different stimulation strategies as possible. A distributed design where data is mainly processed at the local controller of every electrode driver simplifies signal routing, which is critical when the number of electrodes goes up to 1024. A novel electrode driver topology was proposed. Each electrode is controlled by its own driver, which helps selecting electrodes independently. A prototype stimulator with 64 outputs was designed, fabricated, and tested.