Gian Luca Barbruni
EPFL STI IBI-STI LNE
B3 3 238.134 (Campus Biotech bâtiment B3)
Ch. des Mines 9
CH-1202 Genève
+41 21 693 82 43
Office:
B3 3 243.134
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+41 21 693 82 43
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Web site: Web site: https://www.epfl.ch/labs/bci/
Fields of expertise
- Visual Prostheses
- Analog and digital CMOS design
- ULP and Miniaturised IC
- Wireless power transfer and communication
- Spreadable Bioelectronics
- Biosensors
Biography
Gian Luca Barbruni achieved his BSc and his MSc in Biomedical Engineering with specialisation in Biomedical Instrumentation at the Politecnico di Torino in 2017 and 2019, respectively.During his master thesis, supervised by Prof. Danilo Demarchi from Politecnico di Torino and titled “Body Dust: Feasibility study on signal transmission for sub-100μm-size active wireless biosensors”, he spent a semester of research at Integrated Circuit Laboratory (ICLAB) of Neuchâtel under the supervision of Prof. Sandro Carrara from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. He discusses about the feasibility on creating an UltraSound (US) communication circuit to wirelessly transmit outside the body diagnostic information from multiplexed biosensors chip built on the top layer of a drinkable CMOS “Body Dust” cube. The results of the feasibility study have been published showing promising results with sub-10 µW of power consumption and a total chip area of 43 x 44 µm2.
He was a Research Assistant at the Department of Electronic Engineering (DET) of Politecnico di Torino.
Actually he is conducting his PhD focusing on design and fabrication of analog and digital circuits for ultra-miniaturized CMOS for vision prosthesis, directed by Prof. Diego Ghezzi at Medtronic Chair in Neuroengineering in Geneva and co-directed by Prof. Sandro Carrara at ICLAB in Neuchâtel.
Education
High School's Diploma
Scientific PNI
Mater Misericordiae (Italy)
2014
B.Sc.
Biomedical Engineer
Politecnico di Torino (Italy)
2017
M.Sc.
Biomedical Instrumentation
Politecnico di Torino (Italy)
2019
Publications
Infoscience publications
Ultra-Miniaturised CMOS Current Driver for Wireless Biphasic Intracortical Microstimulation
This work shows an ultra-miniaturised and ultra-low-power CMOS current driver for biphasic intracortical microstimulation. The CMOS driver is composed of a leakage-based voltage-to-current converter and an H-bridge circuit providing biphasic charge-balanced current stimulation. The circuit has been simulated, fabricated and tested. The current driver consumes 1.87 mu W with a supply voltage of 1.8 V, and it occupies a silicon area of 15X12.4 mu m(2) . The driver works in linearity in the current range between 23-92 mu A.
2022-01-01. 11th International Conference on Modern Circuits and Systems Technologies (MOCAST) , Bremen, GERMANY , Jun 08-10, 2022.DOI : 10.1109/MOCAST54814.2022.9837681.
A 20 Mbps, 433 MHz RF ASK Transmitter to Inductively Power a Distributed Network of Miniaturised Neural Implants
Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer is an emerging technique in neurotechnology. This work presents an efficient transmitter for both power transfer and downlink data communication to multiple, miniaturised and inductively-powered chips. We designed, implemented and tested a radio-frequency transmitter operating at 433.92 MHz of the industrial, scientific and medical band. A new structure is proposed to efficiently modulate the carrier, exploiting an amplitude-shift keying modulation reaching a data rate as high as 20 Mbps together with a variable modulation index as low as 8%.
2021-01-01. 16th IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications (IEEE MeMeA) , ELECTR NETWORK , Jun 23-25, 2021.DOI : 10.1109/MeMeA52024.2021.9478678.
Equivalent Circuit Analysis of CMUTs-based Device for Measurement in Liquid Samples
Capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs) operating at the series and parallel resonant frequencies, have shown a great potential in ultrasonic application and in biodetection. However, previous equivalent circuits rarely consider the fitting performance and measurement. This study proposes the establishment of the simplified equivalent circuits for the CMUTs-based device to analyze the electrical properties and the measurement sensitivity in liquid environment. We simulate a circular CMUT cell both in air and water through finite element method via COMSOL software, exploiting the multi-domain coupling method. We analyze the impedance behaviors of the CMUTs array with 100 cells under different direct current bias voltages (2 - 10V). Simultaneously, we successfully investigate the damping effects on the electrical characteristics such as impedance, phase, and quality factor. With the 4-element Butterworth-vanDyke model, two simplified equivalent lumped element models (LEMs) are demonstrated to fit the impedance curves of the CMUTs array around the series and parallel frequencies, respectively. Additionally, the sensitivity is evaluated using the simplified equivalent LEMs to explore the CMUTs array has a high normalized measurement sensitivity of 6.024 ppb/Hz at the parallel frequency.
2021-01-01. 16th IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications (IEEE MeMeA) , ELECTR NETWORK , Jun 23-25, 2021.DOI : 10.1109/MeMeA52024.2021.9478722.
From 0.18 mu m to 28nm CMOS Down-scaling for Data Links in Body Dust Applications
In this work, we study the effect of transistor downscaling in a wireless communication circuit for Body Dust application. The system requires a chip lateral size smaller than 10 mu m miming the typical size of a red blood cell and so, supporting free circulation in human tissues. Moreover, an ultra-low-power architecture is needed since the system is battery-less and wirelessly powered via acoustic power transfer. The aim of this paper is to present a data communication system for Body Dust systems, which works from the multiplexed sensor read-out front-end to the transmitter back-end taking account diagnostic information on different metabolite concentrations in human body. This work shows that scaling the architecture from a 0.18-mu m to 28-nm CMOS processes, it is possible to improve both size and power consumption. The improvement is about 40 times in size (2000 mu m(2) down to 50 mu m2) and two order of magnitude in average power consumption (10 mu W to cents of nW).
2021-01-01. 20th IEEE Sensors Conference , ELECTR NETWORK , Oct 31-Nov 04, 2021.DOI : 10.1109/SENSORS47087.2021.9639639.
Miniaturised Wireless Power Transfer Systems for Neurostimulation: A Review
In neurostimulation, wireless power transfer is an efficient technology to overcome several limitations affecting medical devices currently used in clinical practice. Several methods were developed over the years for wireless power transfer. In this review article, we report and discuss the three most relevant methodologies for extremely miniaturised implantable neurostimulator: ultrasound coupling, inductive coupling and capacitive coupling. For each powering method, the discussion starts describing the physical working principle. In particular, we focus on the challenges given by the miniaturisation of the implanted integrated circuits and the related ad-hoc solutions for wireless power transfer. Then, we present recent developments and progresses in wireless power transfer for biomedical applications. Last, we compare each technique based on key performance indicators to highlight the most relevant and innovative solutions suitable for neurostimulation, with the gaze turned towards miniaturisation.
IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems
2020-11-17
DOI : 10.1109/TBCAS.2020.3038599
Other publications
Barbruni, G. L., Motto Ros, P., Aiassa, S., Demarchi, D., & Carrara, S. (2019). Body Dust: Ultra-Low Power OOK Modulation Circuit for Wireless Data Transmission in Drinkable sub-100 {mu} m-sized Biochips. arXiv, arXiv-1912.
Teaching & PhD
Teaching Assistant
- Bio-nano-chip design (EE-517): Introduction to heterogeneous integration for Nano-Bio-CMOS sensors on Chip. Understanding and designing of active Bio/CMOS interfaces powered by nanostructures.
- Analog circuits for biochip (EE-518): Introduction to analog CMOS design for Remote Biosensors on Chip. Understanding and designing of active and remotely powered biosensing systems. Basic understanding of eh wireless transmission of teh obtained signals.
- Low-power radio design for IoT (MICRO-416): The basic function of an IoT node is to collect data and send it through a wireless channel to the cloud. Since the power consumption of an IoT node is largely dominated by the wireless communication, it is therefore key to understand the trade-offs faced when designing the radio.