Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, 497 Cory Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-1774, USA.
Lab Chip. 2010 Feb 21;10(4):519-21. doi: 10.1039/b922830f. Epub 2009 Dec 2.
Microfluidic systems offer an attractive alternative to conventional wet chemical methods with benefits including reduced sample and reagent volumes, shorter reaction times, high-throughput, automation, and low cost. However, most present microfluidic systems rely on external means to analyze reaction products. This substantially adds to the size, complexity, and cost of the overall system. Electronic detection based on sub-millimetre size integrated circuits (ICs) has been demonstrated for a wide range of targets including nucleic and amino acids, but deployment of this technology to date has been limited due to the lack of a flexible process to integrate these chips within microfluidic devices. This paper presents a modular and inexpensive process to integrate ICs with microfluidic systems based on standard printed circuit board (PCB) technology to assemble the independently designed microfluidic and electronic components. The integrated system can accommodate multiple chips of different sizes bonded to glass or PDMS microfluidic systems. Since IC chips and flex PCB manufacturing and assembly are industry standards with low cost, the integrated system is economical for both laboratory and point-of-care settings.
微流控系统为传统的湿法化学方法提供了一种有吸引力的替代方案，其优势包括减少样品和试剂的用量、缩短反应时间、高通量、自动化和低成本。然而，大多数现有的微流控系统依赖于外部手段来分析反应产物。这大大增加了整个系统的体积、复杂性和成本。基于亚毫米尺寸集成电路 (IC) 的电子检测已针对包括核酸和氨基酸在内的广泛目标进行了演示，但由于缺乏将这些芯片集成到微流控设备中的灵活工艺，迄今为止，这项技术的应用受到限制。本文提出了一种基于标准印刷电路板 (PCB) 技术的模块化、低成本的方法，用于将 IC 与微流控系统集成，以组装独立设计的微流控和电子组件。集成系统可以容纳多个大小不同的芯片，这些芯片与玻璃或 PDMS 微流控系统键合。由于 IC 芯片和挠性 PCB 的制造和组装是具有低成本的行业标准，因此集成系统在实验室和现场环境中都具有经济性。
