Design, theoretical analysis, and experimental verification of a CMOS current integrator with 1.2 × 2.05 µm2 microelectrode array for high-sensitivity bacterial counting

Abstract

In this paper, we present the design and experimental verification of an amperometric CMOS-based sensor with a current integrator and a 1.2 × 2.05 µm2 bacterial-sized microelectrode array for high-sensitivity bacterial counting. For high-sensitivity bacterial counting with a sufficient signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), noise must be reduced because bacterial-sized microelectrodes can handle only a low current of the order of 100 pA. Thus, we implement a current integrator that is highly effective for noise reduction. Furthermore, for the first time, we use the current integrator in conjunction with the bacterial-sized microelectrode array. On the basis of the results of the proposed current integration, we successfully reduce noise and achieve a high SNR of 30.4 dB. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed CMOS-based sensor, we perform two-dimensional counting of microbeads, which are almost of the same size as bacteria. The measurement results demonstrate successful high-sensitivity two-dimensional (2D) counting of microbeads with a high SNR of 27 dB.