LNA Architectures for ECG Analog
Front End in CMOS Technology
Malti Bansal and Ishita Sagar
Abstract A low noise amplifier, usually abbreviated as LNA, plays a crucial role in
the collection of ECG signals for further processing. Through the course of this paper,
the numerous topologies of LNA have been thoroughly studied and reviewed. These
topologies have been further compared to narrow down the best among them, based
on parameters expected from an ideal LNA. According to our analysis, open-loop
OTA topology is the best suited LNA topology according to all design parameters
taken under consideration for its use in ECG analog front end applications.
Keywords LNA · OTA · ECG · AFE · CMOS
1 Introduction
The rates of diseases and disorders of the human heart are increasing since the past
few years, owing to the hectic lifestyles of humans. The heart is the most vital organ
for the human body, any disease related to it needs to be identified and cured at
the earliest. The first step towards identifying any disease related to the heart is
measuring its activity, which is thereby done in the form of electric signals, known
as ECG signals. In earlier days, this measurement presented the need for substantial
equipment but owing to rapid advancements in the electronics industry, the same
equipment has reduced vastly in size. It has also been known to improve in terms of
performance. Such considerable achievements, especially in terms of performance,
in this field, are a result of the wide use of Low Noise Amplifier (LNA). LNA is
one of the many components present in the Analog Front End (AFE) of an ECG
acquisition/collection system. The AFE helps in the proper conditioning of a signal
once acquired from the external environment. In this paper, different topologies
and configurations adopted for LNA in ECG Applications have been reviewed. A
M. Bansal (B ) · I. Sagar
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Delhi Technological University
(DTU), Delhi 110042, India
e-mail: maltibansal@gmail.com
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license
to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
G. Ranganathan et al. (eds.), Inventive Communication and Computational
Technologies, Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems 145,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7345-3_83
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