Multifunctional High-Throughput Single-Cell Analysis using Reconfigurable Amplifier Array

Abstract

In recent years, an introduction of CMOS bioelectronic systems to biotechnology gave unprecedented opportunities in extremely high-throughput (1k - 10M parallel recordings) and improved noise performance. However, recent developments of CMOS bioelectronic devices mostly focused on Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) in which the mode of operation is fixed from the design phase. Thus, ASIC devices offer little flexibility and a new design is mandatory to support alternative modes. We developed a reconfigurable design that can switch into different operational modes to suit the type of demanded analysis. The presented CMOS device contains a reconfigurable array of 32 × 32 electrodes and amplifiers. Memory cells are embedded in each unit of the array to store the amplifier configuration and allow for rapid re-programming. The benefit of this approach is the full customizability, conceptually similar to a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). With the demonstrated multifunctionality of the CMOS-based biosensor design, various types of single-cell analysis, including amperometry, cyclic voltammetry, and patch-clamp, can be conducted from a low cost, high-throughput device.