Design and Implementation of Bioamplifier for

Portable ECG Device

By

Vora Saumil Eleshbhai

(141160742006)

Prof. Amit Kumar

Assistant Professor
Marwadi Education Foundation Group of Institutions, Rajkot

A Thesis Submitted to
Gujarat Technological University in Partial
Fulllment of the Requirements for
the Degree of Engineering in

VLSI System Design

December 2015
Images/MarwadiLogo.png

Marwadi Education Foundation's

Faculty of P.G Studies & Research in Engineering & Technology
Rajkot-Morbi Road,
Rajkot-360 003, Gujarat, India.

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that research work embodied in this thesis entitled "Design and

Implementation of Bioamplier for Portable ECG Device" was carried out

by Mr. Vora Saumil Eleshbhai (141160742006) studying at Marwadi Ed-

ucation Foundation's Faculty of P.G Studies & Research in Engineering

& Technology (116) for partial fulllment of Master of Engineering degree to
be awarded by Gujarat Technological University. This research work has been
carried out under my guidance and supervision and it is up to my satisfaction.
Date:
Place:

Signature of Guide:

Signature of H.O.D:

Mr. Amit Kumar

Assistant Professor, EC Department
MEFGI, Rajkot.

Dr. Rajendrakumar Patel

Head
MEFGI, Rajkot.

Signature of Dean:

Dr. Sarang Pande

Dean,
MEFGI-FOPG, Rajkot

Seal of Institute

DP-1 APPROVAL CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that research work embodied in this thesis entitled "Design and

Implementation of Bioamplier for Portable ECG Device" was carried out

by Mr. Vora Saumil Eleshbhai (141160742006) studying at Marwadi Ed-

ucation Foundation's Faculty of P.G Studies & Research in Engineering

& Technology (116) is approved for the degree of Master of Engineering with
specialization of VLSI System Design by Gujarat Technological University.
Date:
Place:

Examiners Sign and Name:

...................................
(
)

...................................
(
)

ii

DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY

We hereby certify that we are the sole authors of this DP-1 report and that neither
any part of this report nor the whole of the report has been submitted for a degree
to any other University or Institution.
We certify that, to the best of our knowledge, the work done till this stage does
not infringe upon anyone's copyright nor violate any proprietary rights and that
any ideas, techniques, quotations or any other material from the work of other
people included in our thesis, published or otherwise, are fully acknowledged in
accordance with the standard referencing practices. Furthermore, to the extent
that we have included copyrighted material that surpasses the boundary of fair
dealing within the meaning of the Indian Copyright (Amendment) Act 2012, we
certify that we have obtained a written permission from the copyright owner(s)
to include such material(s) in the current report and have included copies of such
copyright clearances to our appendix.
We declare that this is a true copy of report, including any nal revisions, as
approved by report review committee.
Date:
Place:

Signature of Student:

Signature of Guide:

Name of Student:

Name of Guide:

Enrollment Number:

Institute Code:

iii

List of Abbriviations
ECG\EKG

Electrocardiogram

AFE

Analog Front-End

ADC

Analog-to-Digital Converter

IMA

Indian Medical Association

IC

Integrated Circuit

GBP

Gain-Bandwidth Product

SA

Sino-Atrial

EEG

Electroencephalogram

IA

Instrumentation Amplier

OTA

Operational Transconductance Amplier

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures

vi

List of Tables

vii

Design and Implementation of Bioamplifier for

Portable ECG Device
Submitted By

Vora Saumil Eleshbhai

(141160742006)
Supervised by

Prof. Amit Kumar

Assistant Professor, E.C Department

Marwadi Education Foundation Group of Institutions, Rajkot

Abstract
This thesis gives a design methodology of high gain, high CMRR, integrated two
stage operational amplier that can be used in analog front-end section of portable
Electrocardiogram(ECG) device. Two stage operational amplier consists of an
input dierential pair, intermediate gain stage, and an output buer. Here a
current mirror biasing technique is used in order to make bias current independent
of power supply. A brief idea of trade-o factors in the operational amplier design
namely bandwidth, gain, bias currents, slew rate, and power dissipation.
The design is targeted to achieve the CMRR of 110dB, gain more than 80dB,
slew rate of 3V/sec., and power dissipation<1mW, as per the specications provided by Association of Advanced Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) using 180nm
technology provided by TSMC. With the listed specications and proposed design
technique, given amplier can be used in biomedical appication like ECG.

viii

1 Introduction

Chapter 1
Intoduction
It is a well known fact that human heart exhibits electrical activity while beating. These electrical signals can be recorded either digitally or physically on a
piece of paper. The graph obtained of the recorded signal is famously known as
electrocardiogram abbreviated as ECG (English) or EKG (German). A wide variety of devices are available in market that can measure as well as record the ECG
signal. With the help of this recorded signal, doctor can be aware with the heart's
rhythm.It is also helpful to extract any deciency in the function of heart. Being
this done at proper time, human beings can be saved from major heart stroke or
diseases. Ultimately human life can be saved with this technology.
The electrical signals generated by human heart are very weak and analog in
nature. For signals to be recorded and to analyze it accurately it is utmost required
to amplify this signal then-after to convert the amplied signal into digital domain.
For this purpose, a module namely Analog Front-End (AFE) is embedded in the
ECG device. An AFE consists of an amplier, a lter and an analog-to-digital
converter (ADC). In order to compress the higher frequency noise signal, a low
pass lter is employed in between amplier and ADC. The block after an AFE is
usually signal processing unit. Here a digital processor is used in order to apply
various processing techniques on signal.Result obtained describes the condition of
human heart.
Further sections of this chapter decribes the motivation ,objectives, and problem
denition of this research work.

Design and Implementation of Bioamplier for Portable ECG Device

1 Introduction
1.1

Motivation

As per the report of Indian Medical Association (IMA), every year about 10-12
million deaths are only due to heart and blood vessels diseases. Apart from that
around 10% of people, above an age of 30, in urban areas and around 5% of people,
of same age group, in rural area suers from blocked arteries [?]. In most of the
cases death occur due to diagnosis not done at required timing. So it becomes
very necessary for heart patient to get their ECG test done on time. Many times,
especially in rural areas, people don't get enough resources or they have to travel
to another place to get their test done.
Study shows that defects in blocked arteries can be easily detected through ECG
test. A test done at the initial stage of blockage then patient can be saved from
death or any major heart stroke. ECG devices are available only at hospitals so
people need to take an appointment for their test. It takes around 20 minutes for
a single ECG test. In today's chaotic life it becomes very dicult for a person to
go for test at appointed time.
This situation can be handled eectively with the aid of a portable ECG device.
A device that humans can take with them wherever they move. Today, a large
number of biomedical instruments manufacturers are investing in building hand
held biomedical devices. In the design of such devices integrated circuit (IC)
technology is very usefulas it allows to reduce the size of instrument to be reduced.
Keeping the importance of IC technology in mind, this research work focuses on
the design of an integrated CMOS amplier, the rst block of portable ECG device.

1.2

Objective

The goal of this thesis is to design an amplier with very high gain, high CMRR
at lower gain-bandwidth product (GBP) . It is favorable to achieve the gain more
than 80 dB, CMRR above 110 dB to amplify weak ECG signals to some satisfactory level. In addition to that, circuit is aimed to be robust against supply
variation as well as noise. Also low power consumption is considered as the added
advantage for biomedical instrumentation. It is targeted that the proposed design
should directly be integrated in AFE to achieve portability in the ECG device.

Design and Implementation of Bioamplier for Portable ECG Device

1 Introduction
1.3

Thesis Organization

First chapter of the thesis covers a brief introduction, motivation behind selecting this topic, and objectives to be achieved. Second chapter focuses on literature
survey. It includes the basics of heart anatomy and electrocardiogram, previous
work done on this topic. Third chapter consists of the design ow and work done
so far in order to achieve goals of the thesis as discussed in section ??. Fourth
chapter concludes the report with summary and future work.

Design and Implementation of Bioamplier for Portable ECG Device

2 Literature Survey

Chapter 2
Literature Survey
This chapter is divided into three sections, in section ?? heart anatomy is discussed, in section ?? ECG signal and its interpretation in explained, in section ??
work done by others till now is discussed.

2.1

Heart Anatomy

To study ECG signal it is prerequisite to study the structure of human heart.

Figure ?? shows the organization of human heart. The average heart beats 100,000
times and pumping around 2,000 gallons (7,571 liters) of blood, per day. The heart
is located in between the lungs and tilted towards left of breastbone. Pericardium,
a double layered membrane, surrounds heart like a sac. Its function is to protect
the heart's muscles, diaphragm, and blood vessels [?].
Heart is divided into four chambers: left and right atria (upper two chambers)
and left and right ventricles (lower two chambers). The left and right atria as well
as left and right ventricles are separated by a wall of muscles called septum. Out
of all, left ventricle is the largest and strongest chamber. Its wall is about half inch
thick. As shown in gure ?? , there are four valves in human heart as listed below:
The

tricuspid valve regulates blood ow between the right atrium and

right ventricle.
The

pulmonary valve controls blood ow from the right ventricle into the

pulmonary arteries, which carry blood to your lungs to pick up oxygen.

Design and Implementation of Bioamplier for Portable ECG Device

2 Literature Survey
The

mitral valve lets oxygen-rich blood from your lungs pass from the left

atrium into the left ventricle.

The

aortic valve opens the way for oxygen-rich blood to pass from the left

ventricle into the aorta, your body's largest artery.

Images/heart.jpg

Figure 2.1: Human Heart Structure [?]

2.1.1

The Conduction System

Electrical impulses from your heart muscle (the myocardium) cause your heart
to contract. This electrical signal begins in the sinoatrial (SA) node, located at
the top of the right atrium. The SA node is sometimes called the heart's "natural
pacemaker." An electrical impulse from this natural pacemaker travels through
the muscle bers of the atria and ventricles, causing them to contract. Although
the SA node sends electrical impulses at a certain rate, your heart rate may still
change depending on physical demands, stress, or hormonal factors [?].

Design and Implementation of Bioamplier for Portable ECG Device

2 Literature Survey
2.1.2

The Circulatory System

The heart and circulatory system make up the cardiovascular system. Human
heart works as a pump that pushes blood to the organs, tissues, and cells of body.
Right atrium receives blood from veins and pumps it to right ventricle. From there
blood is pumped to lungs where it is oxygenated. Now oxygen enriched blood goes
into left atrium. Then blood is pumped into left ventricle from where it goes into
arteries to circulate through out the body.
Ventricular muscles have to pump blood through vessels therefore they are larger
as compared to other. It can be said that most of the work is done by ventricular
muscles. In proper cardiovascular system both, atria and ventricle, must work in
timing relationship.

2.2

Understanding The ECG Signal

Electrocardiogram can be dened as the recording or display of time variant

voltages produced by myocardium during cardiac cycle [?]. In other words it is
nothing but bio-potential signal generated by heart muscles. As heart muscles
generates electricity, many of the damages can be detected with the help of ECG.
The ECG waveform obtained replicates the one's heart rhythm as well as health.
A normal cardiac rhythm originates from Sino-Atrial node hence is referred to
as sinus rhythm.Pacemaker cells in SA node triggers each and every heart beat.
Normal heart rate, when body is at rest, is 60 to 100 beats per minute [?].
Typical ECG signal looks as shown in gure ??.

Images/ecg.jpg

Figure 2.2: ECG Signal [?]

Design and Implementation of Bioamplier for Portable ECG Device

2 Literature Survey

An ECG signal is divided into three parts: P, QRS, and T. P wave represents
the atrial depolarization. The PR interval is the time between rst deection of
P wave and rst deection of QRS wave. Q wave represents depolarization of the
interventricular septum. These waves are generally small and thin and relates to
the breathing. R wave shows the depolarization of the main mass of the ventricles
that's why it is the largest wave.Finally depolarization of the ventricles is signied
by the S wave. ST interval is the time in between end of QRS wave and T wave.
It reects the period of zero potential between ventricular depolarization and repolarization. T wave indicates the re-polarization of ventricles.
Some normal values for amplitude of ECG signal is as shown in table ??.
Table 2.1: Amplitude of ECG Waves [?]

Amplitude (mV) Wave

0.25
1.60
25% of R wave
0.1-0.5

P
R
Q
T

Now table ?? indicates the timing duration of various waveform intervals. Duration given in the table species the standard time duration that each interval
should possess failing to which may lead to heart failure.
Table 2.2: Duration of ECG Wavesl [?]

Duration (sec)
P-R
Q-T
S-T
P
QRS

Wave

0.12-0.20
0.35-0.44
0.05-0.15
0.11
0.09

If P-R interval is greater then 0.2 second then it indicates the blockage of AV
node. Blockage is also indicated if one or more features of ECG is missing. Amplitudes given in table ?? shows that electric potential generated by heart is of very
low level. It is not possible to record or process this much low amplitude signal.
In order to overcome this problem an amplier is needed which will strengthen
the signal amplitude to a level to be recorded or processed.

Design and Implementation of Bioamplier for Portable ECG Device

2 Literature Survey
2.3

Previous Work

Researchers, from all around the world, have presented various types of CMOS
integrated amplier that can be employed directly in biomedical application. As
shown in table ??, ECG signals are very weak and can be easily aected by noise.
For such condition it is strongly required to achieve high gain and CMRR with
higher noise tolerance. This section gives detailed discussion of few signicant
work done by researchers in this domain. At last, dierent designs are compared
and the best one is pointed out.
The idea of designing an integrated AFE is proposed in [?]. The design of digital
programmable CMOS AFE, that can be employed to measure electrocardiogram,
is presented in it . A rail-to-rail instrumentation amplier for low power AFE
is designed. This design achieves the gain of 80 dB while CMRR of 115 dB (01kHZ). The proposed architecture utilizes digital interface to provide exibility to
switch in between ECG or EEG acquisition. It uses only one IA with multiplexed
input.Further, AFE consists of 8:1 input analog multiplexer, a programmable gain
amplier, a low pass lter, and an output scaling amplier.
A CMOS amplier with dierential input and output is presented in [?]. This
architecture employs three stages of amplication. This design provides very high
CMRR and low oset. Bias circuits are designed in order to make circuit less
sensitive to supply changes. The design has been simulated for all process corners
and techniques were employed to make it robust against process variations. Differential amplier is used as the basic building block in this architecture. Then
two gain stages are added to improve the overall gain of the circuit.
A two stage CMOS operational amplier, at 180nm technology is shown in [?].
The architecture consists of cascade and folded cascode dierential amplier in rst
stage trailed by second stage equipped by fully dierential amplier with PMOS
current source load. In order to achieve higher CMRR, common mode feedback
technique is employed. Transistor sizing and the operating conditions are decided
using gm /Id technique. With the increasing number of stages, stability becomes
a matter of concern. In order to make system stable, frequency compensation
technique is used in the design. As this design provides high gain and CMRR, it
is suitable for bio-medical applications.

Design and Implementation of Bioamplier for Portable ECG Device

2 Literature Survey

Table 2.3: Comparision of Various Amplier Topologies

Parameter
P-R
Q-T
S-T
P
QRS

0.12-0.20
0.35-0.44
0.05-0.15
0.11
0.09

A novel technique to achieve high gain at lower noise at 180nm technology is

proposed in [?]. An instrumentation amplier having two op-amps at the input
stage and folded cascode at output stage is designed. This type of structure helps
in improving gain and CMRR. To decide the W/L ratio of each transistors in
design is computed by using gm /Id methodology.
Another topology that can be used for bio-medical application is to use low power
signal conditioning circuit. One such topology employing op-amp as preamplier
and low-pass lter is shown in [?]. It utilizes an OTA (Operational Transconductance Amplier) designed at 180nm technology.
Table ?? shows the comparison of all the above mentioned techniques.

Design and Implementation of Bioamplier for Portable ECG Device

Bibliography

Design and Implementation of Bioamplier for Portable ECG Device

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