A 200-MHz fully-differential CMOS front-end with an on-chip inductor for magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract

Recently, there is a growing interest in applying electronic circuit design for biomedical applications, especially in the area of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). NMR has been used for many years as a spectroscopy technique for analytical chem- istry. Previous studies have demonstrated the design and fabrication of planar spiral inductors (microcoils) that serve as detectors for nuclear magnetic resonance mi- crospectroscopy. The goal of this research was to analyze, design, and test a prototype integrated sensor, which consisted of a similar microcoil detector with analog components to form a multiple-channel front-end for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system to perform microspectroscopy. The research has succeeded in producing good function- ality for a multiple-channel sensor. The sensor met expectations compared to similar one-channel systems through experiments in channel separation and good signal-to- noise ratios.