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Power amplifier used for medical implants

camphor1122

Aug 12, 2014
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Aug 12, 2014
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Hey guys, im new to this forum so if im posting in the wrong spot please let me know!

Recently in my digital signal processing second year subject we had a guest visitor that worked at cochlear which is a hearing implant company. Although most people tooned out completely, i didn't. One thing the guest lecturer mentioned in particular was some sort of power amplifier or buffer amplifier used in their implants where the input voltage would always be Vin+(some threshold), he gave an example but it did not make sense to me at all based on what I've learnt from electronics.

The example was:
The amplifier would have a supply of 0(VSS)-10v(VDD) (if i remember correctly he drew a voltage follower buffer of some sort)
If it was indeed a voltage follower buffer then wouldn't the maximum output be ideally 10v?
The new feature he mentioned was some fixed voltage signal that would always be added to Vin, for example if Vin of the buffer was 1v; then it will give an additional voltage of (for example) 0.5v, resulting in Vin = 1.5v which would make Vout = 1.5v and he also said if Vin = 10v; it will also increase Vin to 10.5v; which is a bit redundant!? since the supply is 0-10v???

The guest lecturer did not really explain this and just said it is useful for medical implants and I did not get the chance to ask him after the lecture. If anyone has any idea to this feature implementation, please shed some light!

thanks!
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
Moderator
Jan 21, 2010
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My recommendation would be to find out his name and either call him or email him and ask.

If he was interested enough to be a guest lecturer then he would probably be happy to have someone who was at his lecture express some genuine interest in what he said.

Perhaps if you get an answer you could tell us! :)
 
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