doi: 10.7873/DATE.2015.1152


Integrated CMOS Receiver for Wearable Coil Arrays in MRI Applications


Benjamin Sporrer1,a, Luca Bettini1, Christian Vogt2, Andreas Mehmann2, Jonas Reber3, Josip Marjanovic3, David O. Brunner3, Thomas Burger1, Klaas P. Pruessmann3, Gerhard Tröster2 and Qiuting Huang1

1Integrated Systems Laboratory, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.

asporrerb@iis.ee.ethz.ch

2Electronics Laboratory, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

3Institute for Biomedical Engineering, ETH Zurich and University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

ABSTRACT

Surface coil arrays brought in proximity of the human body enhance the performance of an MRI measurement both in speed and signal-to-noise ratio. However, size and cabling of such arrays can deteriorate the performance of the imaging, or put at risk the safety of the patient. An integrated CMOS direct conversion receiver is proposed, to be placed directly onto the receive coil and enhance the usability. The integrated design needs to preserve the high performance (both in silent noise figure and dynamic range) of discrete solutions, which benefit from dedicated technologies for every receiver sub-block. To exploit the full potential of a coil array, the receiver on each module must also minimize the coupling to nearby modules. The PCB carrying the ASIC will be fabricated with flexible substrate materials to further enhance the wearability and comfort for the patient. Such a modular approach together with the transmission of data over optical fibers results in a lightweight system that allows us to achieve fast development times.



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