International Journal of Microelectronics and Digital integrated circuits

An Energy-Efficient CMOS Analog Front-End for Wearable Biomedical Monitoring Applications

  1. Rahul Ghodake
  2. Vaibhav Godase
  3. Soham Modi
  4. Vishal Misal

Abstract

Because wearable biomedical monitoring technologies allow for continuous, real-time, and remote measurement of physiological parameters, they are quickly becoming a key component of contemporary healthcare. These systems place stringent demands on the analog front-end (AFE), which must accurately acquire and condition extremely low-amplitude biopotential signals such as electrocardiogram (ECG), electroencephalogram (EEG), and electromyogram (EMG) while operating under severe power and size constraints. This paper presents the design and simulation of an energy-efficient CMOS analog front-end specifically optimized for wearable biomedical monitoring applications. The proposed AFE integrates a low-noise instrumentation amplifier, an active band-limited filter, a programmable gain stage, and a low-power output buffer, all implemented using a standard 180 nm CMOS technology to ensure full on-chip integration and cost effectiveness. Power-aware circuit design techniques, including current scaling, noise-optimized transistor sizing, and low-voltage biasing, are employed to minimize power consumption without compromising signal integrity or stability. The AFE is designed to provide high differential gain, excellent common-mode rejection, and effective suppression of out-of-band noise and interference. Post-layout simulations demonstrate that the proposed design achieves a total power consumption of 210 µW from a 1.8 V supply, a programmable overall gain of up to 60 dB, an input-referred noise density of 6.5 nV/√Hz at 1 kHz, and a common-mode rejection ratio exceeding 90 dB across the signal bandwidth. These performance metrics indicate that the proposed CMOS analog front-end is well suited for low-power, high-fidelity wearable biomedical monitoring systems and represents a practical solution for next-generation portable healthcare devices.

Keywords - CMOS analog front-end, wearable biomedical systems, low power, instrumentation amplifier, ECG, EEG.

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