USB2.0-based Data Acquisition Designed For Full-automatic Patch-Clamp System

The patch clamp technique has become the main method for the molecule and cell research. The data acquisition and control interface in the electronic components, which is one of the parts of the patch-clamp system, realizes the communication between the data and the control commands by connecting the front of the patch-clamp system and the computer system. New type of data acquisition and control interface based on the USB2.0(Universal Serial Bus 2.0) and FPGA technology are discussed in this thesis. It can substitute the traditional ISA card and PCI card with a lot of advantages. The data transmission speed of this interface card can achieve 17.8M Byte/s. Furthermore, the control logic circuit and FIFO memory are integrated into the FPGA, improving the stability and integration of the system. It is an advanced data acquisition and control interface for the new generation patch clamp system. The system architecture of the data acquisition, the choice of the key IC, and the circuit design, are discussed in this thesis in details. Then, more attention is focused on the design methods and on the technique details of the hardware, the software and the architecture. Much work has been done to optimize the hardware and the software design to realize the high-speed transmission and automation.