On-Chip Implantable Antennas for Wireless Power and Data Transfer in a Glaucoma-Monitoring SoC

For the first time separate transmit and receive onchip antennas have been designed in a eye environment for implantable intraocular pressure monitoring application. The miniaturized antennas fit on a 1.4 mm3 CMOS (0.18 μm) chip with the rest of the circuitry. A 5.2 GHz novel inductive fed and loaded receive monopole antenna is used for wireless powering the chip and is conjugately matched to the rectifier in the energy harvesting and storage unit. The 2.4 GHz transmit antenna is an octagonal loop which also acts as the inductor of the voltage control oscillator resonant tank. To emulate the eye environment in measurements, a custom test setup is developed which comprises plexiglass cavities filled with saline solution. A transition, employing a balun, is also designed which transforms the differential impedance of on-chip antennas immersed in saline solution to a 50 ! single-ended micrsotrip line. The antennas on a lossy Si substrate and eye environment provide sufficient gain to establish wireless communication with an external reader placed few cm away from the eye.