ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to design a low-power single-supply stimulator based on X. Chen’s stimulator. It proposes a constant-current stimulator with single supply on the basis of a Cortex-M0+ processor in order to design a low-power and low-cost brain stimulator for small animal models. H-bridge circuit is chosen for the stimulation output module to realize biphasic pulse output with single supply. The 15 V single supply, unused DAC and clock sources are all closed to minimize the power consumption in the Low Power Running Mode (LPRM). In the nonstimulation stage, the MicroController Unit (MCU) enters into LPRM with a low power range and a low clock frequency. Single-power scheme and MCU operation mode transformation reduce the power consumption to 25% of the stimulator for stimulation. Moreover, since stimuli are inputted discretely in most experiments, the power supply of constant-current module can be closed, and MCU can run in low-power mode to reduce the power consumption further during the nonstimulation stage.
