Switched CMOS current source compared to enhanced Howland circuit for bio-impedance applications

Bio-impedance Spectroscopy (BIS) is a technique that allows tissue analysis to diagnose a variety of diseases, such as medical imaging, cancer diagnosis, muscle fatigue detection, glucose measurement, and others under research. The development of CMOS integrated circuit front-ends for bioimpedance analysis is required by the increasing use of wearable devices in the healthcare field, as they offer key features for battery-powered wearable devices. These features include high miniaturization, low power consumption, and low voltage power supply. A key circuit in BIS systems is the current source, and one of the most common topology is the Enhanced Howland Current Source (EHCS). EHCS is also used when the current driver is driven by a pseudo-random signal like discrete interval binary sequences (DIBS), which, due to its broadband nature, requires high performance operational amplifiers. These facts lead to the need for a current source more compatible with DIBS signals, ultra-low power supply, standard CMOS integrated circuit, output current amplitude independent of input voltage amplitude, high output impedance, high load capability, high output voltage swing, and the possibility of tetra-polar BIS analysis, that is a pseudotetra-polar in the case of EHCS. The objective of this work is to evaluate the performance of the Switching CMOS Current Source (SCMOSCS) over EHCS using a Cole-skin model as a load using SPICE simulations (DC and AC sweeps and transient analysis). The SCMOSCS demonstrated an output impedance of more than 20 MΩ, a ± 2.5 V output voltage swing from a +3.3 V supply, a 275 μA current consumption, and a 10 kΩ load capacity. These results contrast with the + 1.5 V output voltage swing, the 3 kΩ load capacity, and the 4.9 mA current of the EHCS case.