A circuit and method for cochlear implant telemetry where digital data is encoded into an RF signal. The RF signal is applied via a rectifier diode to a first switch matrix S1 and a second switch matrix S2, with S1 being coupled to a first sampling capacitor C1 and S2 being coupled to a second sampling capacitor C2. A local oscillator signal with period T is applied that controls S1 and S2, cyclically coupling C1 and C2 to the RF signal, a first input to a comparator, and ground. The comparator compares the first input to a DC reference voltage. The output of the comparator is then sampled via a flip flop clocked by the local oscillator, with the flip flop outputting a data bit stream representative of the envelope of the RF signal having encoded information. <；IMAGE>；
