A SoC bio-analysis platform for real-time biological cell analysis-on-a-chip

Future bio-analysis devices and systems will be heavily dependent on the micro-convergence of SoC platforms with the disparate technologies of MEMS and microfluidics. This paper describes a bio-analysis system that will be part of a future low-power bio-analysis platform being developed jointly in the ATIPS and Bioelectrics Laboratories at the University of Calgary. The analysis technique will exploit dielectrophoresis (DEP), an electrokinetic phenomenon that has demonstrated novel and noninvasive biological cell identification, interrogation and species separation capabilities. Various electrode configurations have been previously developed and implemented, each of which can manipulate cells in a specific manner, and test microstructures have been built by fabricating the electrodes using a standard CMOS process. In this paper we generalize this concept by providing a generic electrode structure, a "lexel" (electric field element) array, which, when integrated with a processor, is capable of generating an arbitrary electric field shape, thus facilitating a programmable sequence of different cell manipulations to be performed. This paper presents a proposal for the "lexel" array, a two dimensional array of discrete, independent electrodes, and discusses it's interfacing with appropriate controlling and sensing electronic components to provide flexible cell manipulation and subsequent analysis capability as part of a System-on-Chip bio-analysis platform.