A new fully integrated multichannel receiver design for magnetic resonance imaging

In this contribution, we introduce a new fully integrated receiver architecture for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), based on CMOS technology. The design is conceived to be an excellent solution to the size, cost, and complexity problems associated with multiple MRI channels, and potentially removes a technical barrier when implementing arrays of massive numbers of coils. In contrast to conventional MRI receivers, the CMOS integrated solution allows to perform all the required signal processing within a single chip. This includes low-noise pre-amplification, frequency down-conversion, filtering, and analog-to-digital conversion. The CMOS chip is designed to be mounted in close proximity to the MR receive coils so as to avoid both signal attenuation as well as the use of bulky coaxial cables which are normally employed to transfer the MRI signals to the spectrometer. The output MR signals from the chip are digital and therefore relatively immune to noise. Operation in the digital domain allows to perform time-domain multiplexing on the data streams, and to replace the electrical coaxial cables with optical fibers. The simulation results of both the system-level and the circuit-level realizations of the new receiver showed successful reconstruction of the MR image with very minimal SNR degradation and no remarkable distortion or artifacts.