Abstract
Microelectronics is emerging, sometimes with changing fortunes, as a key enabling technology in diagnostics. This paper reviews some recent results and technical challenges which still need to be addressed in terms of the design of CMOS analog application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and their integration in the surrounding systems, in order to consolidate this technological paradigm. Open issues are discussed from two, apparently distant but complementary, points of view: micro-analytical devices, combining microfluidics with affinity bio-sensing, and gamma cameras for simultaneous multi-modal imaging, namely scintigraphy and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The role of integrated circuits is central in both application domains. In portable analytical platforms, ASICs offer miniaturization and tackle the noise/power dissipation trade-off. The integration of CMOS chips with microfluidics poses multiple open technological issues. In multi-modal imaging, now that the compatibility of the acquisition chains (thousands of Silicon Photo-Multipliers channels) of gamma detectors with Tesla-level magnetic fields has been demonstrated, other development directions, enabled by microelectronics, can be envisioned in particular for single-photon emission tomography (SPECT): a faster and simplified operation, for instance, to allow transportable applications (bed-side) and hardware pre-processing that reduces the number of output signals and the image reconstruction time.
Highlights
The impact of application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), in particular, of CMOS analog front-end interfaces for solid-state sensors and detectors, differs significantly among various application areas
In this brief tutorial review, we focus on non-invasive medical diagnostics and discuss some challenges for the future development of integrated electronics, with reference to diagnostics in particular
They have been demonstrated in software post-processing and in discrete-hardware implementations, but it is evident that an integrated implementation of such strategies in ASICs would offer significant benefits in terms of: (i) compactness, (ii) the robustness of signals and reliability, and (iii) processing time, as demonstrated by several emerging examples of hardware acceleration in image processing and machine learning based on neural networks on-chip [51,52,53]
Summary
The impact of application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), in particular, of CMOS analog front-end interfaces for solid-state sensors and detectors, differs significantly among various application areas. Despite a large penetration of micro-fabrication techniques in this field, and a considerable volume of publications, ASICs are rarely pivotal in the success of micro-analytical devices, especially from a commercial point of view In this brief tutorial review, we focus on non-invasive medical diagnostics and discuss some challenges for the future development of integrated electronics, with reference to diagnostics in particular. The marker (typically a protein) can be selectively identified by means instance, the evanescent at the core/cladding interface of a photonic and magnetic of a matching moleculefield (of natural or synthetic origin) showing a strongwaveguide), bio-chemical affinity with it or The second instead, is nowadays mostly pursued within (leveraging, for approach, instance, the evanescent field at the core/cladding interface theoflab-on-a-chip (LoC) paradigm, aimingoratelectrochemical the realization(detecting of portable automatic micro- or a photonic waveguide), and magnetic theand alteration of Faradaic analytical platforms. In order to reduce the power dissipation in analog front-ends, different
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