International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Vol 16, No 4: August 2026

Design and characterization of a flexible ultra-low-power analog front-end circuit using organic thin-film transistors for wearable electrocardiogram monitoring

Suhad Qasim G. Haddad (Al-Mansour University College)
Ali Falih Chlloob (University Tenaga Nasional)



Article Info

Publish Date
01 Aug 2026

Abstract

The shift from reactive to proactive healthcare has accelerated the development of flexible, comfortable, and energy-efficient wearable health monitoring systems. This study addresses a critical technological gap: the inherent trade-off between the mechanical flexibility of organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) and their limited electrical performance (low charge carrier mobility) compared to rigid silicon-based technologies. To overcome this, we outline the system-level design of a fully configurable analog front-end (AFE) utilizing OTFTs for precise electrocardiogram (ECG) measurement. A theoretical transfer-function-based co-design approach is used to balance gain, noise rejection, and power efficiency via high-fidelity MATLAB/Simulink continuous-time simulations. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed AFE achieves a 40 dB gain, a precise diagnostic bandwidth of 0.5–150 Hz, a common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) of 65 dB, and an ultra-low power consumption of 33 µW. These metrics strictly align with standard clinical ECG requirements, outperforming current state-of-the-art all-organic architectures primarily in power efficiency. Consequently, the input signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is significantly enhanced by 24.53 dB (from 8.01 to 32.54 dB). The novelty of this work lies in achieving silicon-like clinical functionality within an all-organic structure at minimal power. This establishes a new benchmark for flexible electronics and paves the way for invisible, skin-like devices for continuous cardiovascular monitoring.

Copyrights © 2026






Journal Info

Abbrev

IJECE

Publisher

Subject

Computer Science & IT Electrical & Electronics Engineering

Description

International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering (IJECE, ISSN: 2088-8708, a SCOPUS indexed Journal, SNIP: 1.001; SJR: 0.296; CiteScore: 0.99; SJR & CiteScore Q2 on both of the Electrical & Electronics Engineering, and Computer Science) is the official publication of the Institute of ...