Impedance Spectroscopy and Electrophysiological Imaging of Cells With a High-Density CMOS Microelectrode Array System

A monolithic multi-functional CMOS microelectrode array system was developed that enables label-free electrochemical impedance spectroscopy of cells in vitro at high spatiotemporal resolution. The electrode array includes 59,760 platinum microelectrodes, densely packed within a 4.5 mm × 2.5 mm sensing region at a pitch of 13.5 μm. A total of 32 on-chip lock-in amplifiers can be used to measure the impedance of any arbitrarily chosen subset of electrodes in the array. A sinusoidal voltage, generated by an on-chip waveform generator with a frequency range from 1 Hz to 1 MHz, was applied to the reference electrode. The sensing currents through the selected recording electrodes were amplified, demodulated, filtered, and digitized to obtain the magnitude and phase information of the respective impedances. The circuitry consumes only 412 μW at 3.3 V supply voltage and occupies only 0.1 mm
²
, for each channel. The system also included 2048 extracellular action-potential recording channels on the same chip. Proof of concept measurements of electrical impedance imaging and electrophysiology recording of cardiac cells and brain slices are demonstrated in this paper. Optical and impedance images showed a strong correlation.