This paper reports on a pulsed coding technique based on optical Ultra-wideband (UWB)
modulation for wireless implantable biotelemetry systems allowing for high data rate link whilst
enabling significant power reduction compared to the state-of-the-art. This optical data coding
approach is suitable for emerging biomedical applications like transcutaneous neural wireless
communication systems. The overall architecture implementing this optical modulation technique
employs sub-nanosecond pulsed laser as the data transmitter and small sensitive area photodiode as
the data receiver. Moreover, it includes coding and decoding digital systems, biasing and driving
analogue circuits for laser pulse generation and photodiode signal conditioning. The complete system
has been implemented on Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and prototype Printed Circuit
Board (PCB) with discrete off-the-shelf components. By inserting a diffuser between the transmitter
and the receiver to emulate skin/tissue, the system is capable to achieve a 128 Mbps data rate with a
bit error rate less than 10 9 and an estimated total power consumption of about 5 mW corresponding
to a power efficiency of 35.9 pJ/bit. These results could allow, for example, the transmission of an
800-channel neural recording interface sampled at 16 kHz with 10-bit resolution.