Low-voltage bulk-driven rectifier for biomedical applications

This paper introduces the novel design of a low-voltage low-power voltage rectifier based on bulk-driven (BD) winner-take-all (WTA) circuit. The proposed circuit is able to work as a halfor full-wave rectifier and it is specifically designed for battery-powered implantable and wearable medical devices. The main attractive features of the proposed circuit are topology simplicity, minimal number of transistors, accuracy and capability of rectifying signals with a relatively wide range of frequencies and amplitudes. The circuit was designed with single voltage supply of 0.6 V and consumes about 2.14 mW. Detailed simulations using TSMC 0.18 mm n-well CMOS technology were performed to prove the functionality and to fully characterize the circuit performance. & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.