Minimally invasive medical catheter with highly flexible FDSOI-based integrated circuits

A highly flexible integrated circuit (IC) composed of sensors and amplifiers using high-performance fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) transistors is demonstrated for bio-medical applications. The flexible IC is fabricated using a single-crystalline Si nano-membrane. The sensors based on the silicon nano-membrane show excellent performance on health monitoring parameters such as the pressure, temperature and pH, and the sensor output signals are further amplified through the built-in flexible amplifiers. The fabricated IC has excellent flexibility, and its minimum bending radius is as low as 1 mm. A catheter with a 1 mm diameter, equipped with this flexible IC, is fabricated and successfully demonstrated for minimally invasive medical instrument applications. Bio-compatibility of the fabricated device was also confirmed by immunohistochemistry, with no inflammatory reactions occurring. These results can expedite the utilization of high-performance flexible electronics in implantable and bio-medical applications.