A CMOS VLSI cochlea

An analog electronic cochlea has been built in CMOS VSLI technology using micropower techniques to achieve the goal of usefulness via realism. The key point of the model and circuits is that a cascade of simple, nearly linear, second-order filter stages with controllable Q parameters suffices to capture the physics of the fluid-dynamic traveling-wave system in the cochlea, including the effects of adaptation and active gain involving the outer hair cells. Measurements on the test chip suggest that the circuit matches both the theory and observations from real cochlea.<>