A Failure Analysis of Intramuscular Rigid Implants for Muscle Contractions

Abstract

Several studies have been made to develop different versions of new leadless, permanently implanted small electronic devices that allow to be injected into muscles (BIONs™). Their circuitry should be protected from body fluids by thin-walled hermetic capsules of rigid and brittle materials such as glass or ceramic to include feed through for their electrodes. These packages experience repetitive stresses due to the muscle contraction from their excitations. This study provides a worst-case analysis of such stresses and methods to test and validate devices intended for such usage, along with the failure analysis and remediation strategy for a design that experienced unanticipated failures in vivo.