Conventional cochlear implants using periodic sampling are power consuming and incapable of capturing the amplitude and phase of the input acoustic signal simultaneously. This paper presents an asynchronous event-driven encoder chip for cochlear implants capable of extracting the temporal fine structure. The chip architecture is based on asynchronous delta modulation (ADM) where the signal peak/trough crossing events are captured and digitized intrinsically, which has the advantages of significantly reduced power consumption, reduced circuit area, and the elimination of dedicated data compression circuitry. An 8-channel prototype chip was fabricated in 0.18 μm 1P6M CMOS process, occupying an area of 0.15 ×1.7 mm2 and has a power consumption of 36.2 μW from a 0.6V supply. A 16-channel stimulation encoding system was built by integrating two test chips, capable of processing the entire audible frequency range from 100 Hz to 10 kHz. Experimental characterization using the human voice is provided to corroborate functionality in the application environment.

中文翻译：

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具有同步时间包络和相位提取功能的异步事件驱动编码器，用于人工耳蜗。

使用周期性采样的常规人工耳蜗是耗电的并且不能同时捕获输入声信号的幅度和相位。本文提出了一种异步事件驱动编码器芯片，用于耳蜗植入，能够提取时间精细结构。该芯片架构基于异步增量调制（ADM），其中信号峰/谷穿越事件被固有地捕获并数字化，其优点是可大大降低功耗，减小电路面积并消除专用数据压缩电路。8通道原型芯片采用0.18μm1P6M CMOS工艺制造，占地0.15×1.7 mm2，0.6V电源的功耗为36.2μW。通过集成两个测试芯片构建了一个16通道刺激编码系统，该芯片能够处理100 Hz至10 kHz的整个可听频率范围。提供了使用人类语音的实验表征，以证实应用程序环境中的功能。