Nanochap Launches Programmable Neuromodulation Platform Chip - Stim Engines ENS001

Nanochap, a biochip developer, recently announced a new System-on-Chip (SoC), Stim Engines ENS001 (Figure 1), designed for neuromodulation applications. It is the industry's first SoC with multi-channel, fully programmable stimulation parameters and waveforms, and support for multiple stimulation modes, which can be flexibly applied to a variety of wearable and implantable nerve/muscle stimulation and neuromodulation applications. As a platform chip for neuromodulation, it enables manufacturers in this field to create unique and highly flexible system solutions for their product designs.

Figure 1 Physical drawing of Stim Engines ENS001 chip

As research in the field of neuroscience continues to evolve, neuromodulation research and applications are growing rapidly. Over the past few decades, neuromodulation has been applied in more and more fields, allowing numerous patients to be treated with neuromodulation technology and improve. The nervous system is an extremely complex system that affects all aspects of the human body, so the scope of application of neuromodulation technology is very broad, including both in vitro and implantable applications of the device, covering a wide range of conditions such as neurological injuries, motor dysfunctions, chronic pain, spasticity, epilepsy, gastrointestinal and bladder dysfunctions, peripheral vascular disorders, cardiac ischemia, visual and auditory disorders, and psychogenic disorders such as depression, OCD, and many other diseases. depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder), and many other areas.

It is because the neuromodulation technology has many characteristics such as adjustable, reversible, durable, and targeted, and can be widely used in various diseases caused by the nervous system, which has a very broad development space, and also creates a space for the rapid enhancement of the market scale of this technology, and is becoming a hotspot of the current market.

II. Introduction to the system

The Stim Engines ENS001 Programmable Neuromodulation Platform Chip integrates a 32MHz ARM processor, a multi-channel highly flexible stimulation driver circuit, an on-chip charging circuit, a configurable boost DC converter, and a temperature sensor, among other modules, as shown in Fig. 2, and is a highly integrated and programmable neural/muscular stimulation and neuromodulation solution chip.

Figure 2 Stim Engines ENS001 system block diagram

ENS001 chip output current and output voltage adjustment amplitude, high degree of freedom. The single channel current can be adjusted from several μA to 70mA, and the output voltage of the boost circuit can be adjusted from 0V to 60V. The chip integrates three kinds of stimulation circuits (Driver A, Driver B, and Driver C), which support the output of uni/bi-directional current waveforms ranging from DC to more than 50kHz, including sinusoidal/square/triangle waveforms and all kinds of modulated waveforms, and arbitrary waveforms can be realized by programming the chip, which can be used in most of the stimulator applications. It can be used in most of the stimulator applications. Driver A supports 4-channel simultaneous output, can output 33μA-67mA current under 45V-60V voltage, and adopts dynamic charge copying technology to realize charge balance, which is suitable for TENS devices, IFT devices, and EMS devices. Driver C supports 8-channel simultaneous output, can output 100μA-25mA current at 10V-25V, also realizes dynamic charge balance, and is suitable for implants such as DBS and SCS. Driver B can support up to 23-channel time-sharing output, can output 8uA-2mA current at 10V-20V, and achieve 100% charge balance, suitable for implants such as cochlear implants.

The system integrates an ARM processor for flexible control of the stimulator as well as other modules. The analog part of the chip is equipped with a programmable gain amplifier, comparator, 12-bit SAR ADC, and temperature sensor, which can collect relevant human body signals and form a linkage closed-loop control with the stimulator. The chip's on-chip charging circuit can meet the user's charging function requirements and supports I²C, UART, and SPI communication interfaces as well as the commonly used LCD screen driver with 4 common terminals (COM) and 16 segment terminals (SEG).

III. Scope of Application

Stim Engines ENS001 is a highly integrated, arbitrarily programmable nerve/muscle stimulation chip (stimulation waveforms and parameters can be freely customized), and its wide range of high-precision adjustable output current amplitude and frequency, as well as the attributes of the multi-channel, determines that Stim Engines ENS001 chip can be used in the majority of the neuromodulation application scenarios that are known to us nowadays, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Neuromodulation application

The chip comes with high temperature, high voltage, high current, and other detection and security systems, which can well meet the requirements of implantable or high-performance neuromodulation devices for miniaturization and security; and supports multi-modal stimulation, which is highly expandable and can be widely used in the applications listed in Figure 4.

Fig. 4 List of typical applications of Stim Engines ENS001

IV. Summary

 With the advancement of future research, the field of neuromodulation will surely derive more space for development, and more diseases related to the nervous system will likely become the application areas of neuromodulation products, with a very broad market prospect. Stim Engines ENS001 chip, as a programmable platform chip, can meet most of the application scenarios of electrical stimulation, providing a high degree of flexibility, adaptability, and closed-loop control, which can greatly simplify the design of product solutions and the R&D cycle of the downstream manufacturers, and it is a product with the potential to disrupt the industry.