Shih Kang

A VLSI design of singular value decomposition processor for portable continuous-wave diffusion optical tomography systems

In recent years, developments in diffuse optical tomography (DOT) technology have rapidly progressed in biomedical applications such as functional brain imaging. Furthermore, during the last decade, singular value decomposition has increasingly found many applications in the engineering field. Our goal is to develop a truly portable DOT system by utilizing system-on-chip design technique. In our DOT system, designing the SVD processor using VLSI technique is very efficient for solving the inverse problem in the DOT algorithm. In this paper, we focus on the hardware architecture design of the Jacobi singular value decomposition (JSVD) for applications in continuous wave diffusion optical tomography (CW-DOT) systems. The design is implemented using 90nm CMOS process technology and simulation results verify the functionality of the JSVD design within the developed CW-DOT system.

Advanced green energy system-on-chip design for portable diffusion optical tomography

In recent years, the rapid development of semiconductor manufacturing technology has made possible the large scale design and integration of many system level applications into a single chip. In this paper, we propose a portable computed tomography (CT) system to provide the general public easy access to a basic type of health check-up outside the hospital setting. The designed system employs diffuse optical tomography (DOT) technology, a technology which has found many successful applications in the field of biomedicine, such as breast cancer detection and observation of oxygenated hemoglobin distribution in the brain. In this paper, we develop a low-cost continuous wave near-infrared (CW-NIR) DOT system, paving the way for practical solutions in portable biomedical system-on-a-chip (SoC) applications. In addition, we demonstrate image reconstruction improvements associated with the two-dimensional (2D) post-processing technique employed in the proposed system.

Portable SoC design for CW diffusion optical tomography

In this paper, a digital signal processing system for image reconstruction of continuous wave diffusion optical tomography (CW-DOT) is proposed. Optical tomography systems employing near-infrared light can be used to detect oxygen concentration and impurities such as breast cancer in the human body. The proposed CW-DOT architecture is a truly appropriate system for further enhancing the possibility of miniaturization. The system is designed with the goal of high accuracy, low power and low cost for portable biomedical system on a chip (SoC) applications. Finally, the system has been verified on an SoC development platform, demonstrating fast and accurate reconstruction of two-dimensional (2D) DOT images.

A highly-integrated biomedical multiprocessor system for portable brain-heart monitoring

In this paper, a highly-integrated multiprocessor chip design enabling the real-time processing of biomedical signals in portable brain-heart monitoring systems is presented. The architecture comprises a novel diffuse optical tomography (DOT) processor for taking brain imaging, an independent component analysis (ICA) processor for removing artifacts of brain electroencephalogram (EEG) signals, and a heart rate variability (HRV) analysis processor for monitoring heart electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. The multiprocessor chip implemented in 65nm CMOS technology comprises 368k gates and occupies a core area of 462k µm2. Simulated power consumption using a full operation test case reports 3.6mW under the condition of 1.0V core supply voltage and 24MHz clock operating frequency.

A SoC design for portable 2-dimension oximeter image system

In recent years, many studies of 2-D oxygen saturation distribution reconstruction have provided easy access to human brain activity regions. However, only a few research focus on the home health care system using this technique. In this paper, we proposed a portable, low cost and real-time distribution reconstruction system of oxygen saturation in 2-D to make diagnosis at home possible. The system has been implemented in hardware as an oxygen saturation processor and verified on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Furthermore, we also introduce an image post processing unit to enhance the reconstruction result. Finally, we show that our system can recognize the variation of oxygen saturation region with high precision in detection tissue.

A Hardware Design for Portable Continuous Wave Diffuse Optical Tomography

In recent years, the rapid development of diffuse optical tomography (DOT) technology has made possible many successful applications in the field of biomedicine, such as breast cancer detection and observation of oxygenated hemoglobin distribution in the brain. In this work, we build an inexpensive and portable real-time continuous wave near-infrared (CW-NIR) DOT system hardware suitable for use in system on a chip (SOC) applications. With greatly reduced system volume, the system can pave the way for practical develop- ments in the clinical setting. The proposed system processes digitized biomedical signals acquired from a front-end sensor circuit, and can operate in either continuous or discontinuous mode according to user settings. Finally, we demonstrate the improvements in image reconstruction associated with the two-dimensional (2D) post-processing technique employed in the proposed system.