Compressive Sensing Photoacoustic Imaging Receiver with Matrix-Vector-Multiplication SAR ADC

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hardware-embedded compressive sensing photoacoustic imaging receiver with matrix-vector-multiplication SAR ADCs, significantly reducing data rates while maintaining high image quality for wearable health monitoring devices.

Contribution

It presents a novel integrated hardware architecture combining compressive sensing with MVM SAR ADCs for efficient, low-power wearable photoacoustic imaging.

Findings

Achieves 4-8x data rate reduction with full-array information preservation.

Demonstrates high-fidelity image reconstruction with up to 8x compression.

Chip achieves 57.5 dB SNDR at 20.41 MS/s in 65 nm CMOS.

Abstract

Wearable photoacoustic imaging devices hold great promise for continuous health monitoring and point-of-care diagnostics. However, the large data volume generated by high-density transducer arrays presents a major challenge for realizing compact and power-efficient wearable systems. This paper presents a photoacoustic imaging receiver (RX) that embeds compressive sensing directly into the hardware to address this bottleneck. The RX integrates 16 AFEs and four matrix-vector-multiplication (MVM) SAR ADCs that perform energy- and area-efficient analog-domain compression. The architecture achieves a 4-8x reduction in output data rate while preserving low-loss full-array information. The MVM SAR ADC executes passive and accurate MVM using user-defined programmable ternary weights. Two signal reconstruction methods are implemented: (1) an optimization approach using the fast iterative shrinkage-thresholding algorithm, and (2) a learning-based approach employing implicit neural representation. Fabricated in 65 nm CMOS, the chip achieves an ADC's SNDR of 57.5 dB at 20.41 MS/s, with an AFE input-referred noise of 3.5 nV/sqrt(Hz). MVM linearity measurements show R^2 > 0.999 across a wide range of weights and input amplitudes. The system is validated through phantom imaging experiments, demonstrating high-fidelity image reconstruction under up to 8x compression. The RX consumes 5.83 mW/channel and supports a general ternary-weighted measurement matrix, offering a compelling solution for next-generation miniaturized, wearable PA imaging systems.