Heterogeneous neural amplifier integration for scalable extracellular microelectrodes

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Jorg Scholvin, Justin Kinney, Jacob Bernstein, Caroline Moore-Kochlacs, Nancy Kopell, Clifton Fonstad, Edward Boyden (2016) Heterogeneous Neural Amplifier Integration for Scalable Extracellular Microelectrodes, 38th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society 2016:2789-2793.

We here demonstrate multi-chip heterogeneous integration of microfabricated extracellular recording electrodes with neural amplifiers, highlighting a path to scaling electrode channel counts without the need for more complex monolithic integration. We characterize the noise and impedance performance of the heterogeneously integrated neural recording electrodes, and analyze the design parameters that enable the low-voltage neural input signals to co-exist with the high-frequency and high-voltage digital outputs on the same silicon substrate. This heterogeneous integration approach can enable future scaling efforts for microfabricated neural probes, and provides a design path for modular, fast, and independent scaling innovations in recording electrodes and neural amplifiers.