Patent ID: 8219203

Claim:
A method for stimulating a plurality of electrodes implanted in a human inner ear comprising: multiplexing a plurality of current sources in accordance with a stimulation mode set using a command frame, wherein the plurality of current sources includes less then N current sources, where N is the number of electrodes in said plurality of electrodes; encoding stimulation data for the stimulation of the plurality of electrodes in a data frame following the command frame, wherein the stimulation data includes electrode address information, phase polarity information and amplitude information; generating a stimulation pulse based on said stimulation data and using one or more of the plurality of current sources in accordance with the stimulation mode, wherein at least one of the plurality of current sources is configured to produce a multi-resolution current based on a reference current; and delivering the stimulation pulse to one or more of the plurality of electrodes in accordance with the stimulation data.