CMOS-Based Microsystems for Chemical and Biological Applications

Diego Barrettino, Integrated Systems Laboratory (LSI), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne

Abstract: Research activity on microsystems is currently directed towards single-chip solutions with micromachined devices which are becoming more and more complex, and system specifications which are more demanding. At the same time, the price of the microsystems and the time to market must be reduced. Even though the current improvements in micromachined sensors and actuators performance are amazing, they do not necessarily meet the demanding microsystem specifications for chemical and biological applications. Sophisticated readout and control electronics have to be designed and monolithically implemented with the micromachined devices to respond to such challenges.

The aforementioned aspects will be illustrated in the talk by presenting two types of microsystems comprising micro-electro-mechanical devices (membranes or cantilevers) and associated readout and control circuitry. These microsystems are fabricated using an industrial 0.8-μm CMOS process combined with some post-CMOS micromachining.

About the speaker: Diego R. Barrettino received the Diploma in electronic engineering from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1997 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, in 2004. His graduate work concentrated on CMOS readout and control architectures for monolithic microsystems. From 1997 to 2000, he was employed by Allegro MicroSystems, Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he was an analog IC designer for monolithic magnetic sensors fabricated in BiCMOS technology. From 2004 to 2005, he was a postdoctoral research associate in the Microscale Life Sciences Center (MLSC), Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, USA, where he was involved in the development of microsystems comprising CMOS integrated circuits and microfluidic devices to sense multiple parameters in individual living cells at real-time. From 2005 to 2006, he was a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, USA, where he was working on the design of label-free electrochemical DNA sensors for clinical diagnostics. He joined the Integrated Systems Laboratory (LSI), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPF) Lausanne as senior research scientist in September 2006.

Diego Barrettino is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). His current research interests are in the fields of analog and mixed-signal IC design, control architectures for integrated microsystems, microsensors, MEMS, bioelectronics and systems biology.

 

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