An Extended CMOS ISFET Model Incorporating the Physical Design Geometry and the Effects on Performance and Offset Variation

This paper presents an extended model for the CMOS-based ion-sensitive field-effect transistor, incorporating design parameters associated with the physical geometry of the device. This can, for the first time, provide a good match between calculated and measured characteristics by taking into account the effects of nonidealities such as threshold voltage variation and sensor noise. The model is evaluated through a number of devices with varying design parameters (chemical sensing area and MOSFET dimensions) fabricated in a commercially available 0.35-µm CMOS technology. Threshold voltage, subthreshold slope, chemical sensitivity, drift, and noise were measured and compared with the simulated results. The first- and second-order effects are analyzed in detail, and it is shown that the sensors' performance was in agreement with the proposed model

A CMOS-Based Lab-on-Chip Array for Combined Magnetic Manipulation and Opto-Chemical Sensing

Accepted versio

Cost-effective fabrication of nanoscale electrode memristors with reproducible electrical response

Accepted versio

A CMOS-based Lab-on-Chip Array for the Combined Magnetic Stimulation and Opto-Chemical Sensing of Neural Tissue

This paper presents a novel CMOS-based lab-on-chip platform for non-contact magnetic stimulation and recording of neural tissue. The proposed system is the first of its kind to integrate magnetic-stimulation and opto-chemical sensing in a single pixel, tesselated to form an 8 à 8 array. Fabricated in a commercially-available 0.35 ¿m CMOS technology, the system can be intrinsically used for both optical imaging and pH sensing and includes mechanisms for calibrating out sensor variation and mismatch. In addition to sensory acquisition via an integrated 10-bit ADC, a 64-instruction spatiotemporal pattern generator has been embedded within the array for driving the microscale magnetic neural stimulation. In this application the ISFET-based sensors are used to capacitively-couple neuronal charge in close proximity to the floating gate. Optical imaging hardware has also been embedded to provide topographic detail of the neural tissue.Published versio

Long-lasting FR-4 surface hydrophilisation towards commercial PCB passive microfluidics

Printed circuit boards (PCB) technologies are an attractive system for simple sensing and microfluidic systems. Controlling the surface properties of PCB material is an important part of this technology and to date there has been no study on long-term hydrophilisation stability of these materials. In this work, the effect of different oxygen plasma input power and treatment duration times on the wetting properties of FR-4 surfaces was investigated by sessile droplet contact angle measurements. Super and weakly hydrophilic behaviour was achieved and the retention time of these properties was studied, with the hydrophilic nature being retained for at least 26 days. To demonstrate the applicability of this treatment method, a commercially manufactured microfluidic structure made from a multilayer PCB (3-layer FR-4 stack) was exposed to oxygen plasma at the optimum conditions. The structures could be filled with deionised (DI) water under capillary flow unlike the virgin devices

An FPGA-based system for generalised electron devices testing

Electronic systems are becoming more and more ubiquitous as our world digitises. Simultaneously, even basic components are experiencing a wave of improvements with new transistors, memristors, voltage/current references, data converters, etc, being designed every year by hundreds of R &D groups world-wide. To date, the workhorse for testing all these designs has been a suite of lab instruments including oscilloscopes and signal generators, to mention the most popular. However, as components become more complex and pin numbers soar, the need for more parallel and versatile testing tools also becomes more pressing. In this work, we describe and benchmark an FPGA system developed that addresses this need. This general purpose testing system features a 64-channel source-meter unit, and [Formula: see text] banks of 32 digital pins for digital I/O. We demonstrate that this bench-top system can obtain [Formula: see text] current noise floor, [Formula: see text] pulse delivery at [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] maximum current drive/channel. We then showcase the instrument's use in performing a selection of three characteristic measurement tasks: (a) current-voltage characterisation of a diode and a transistor, (b) fully parallel read-out of a memristor crossbar array and (c) an integral non-linearity test on a DAC. This work introduces a down-scaled electronics laboratory packaged in a single instrument which provides a shift towards more affordable, reliable, compact and multi-functional instrumentation for emerging electronic technologies

Experimental study of gradual/abrupt dynamics of HfO₂-based 1 memristive devices

The resistance switching dynamics of TiN/HfO2/Pt devices is analyzed in this paper. When biased with a voltage ramp of appropriate polarity, the devices experience SET transitions from high to low resistance states in an abrupt manner, which allows identifying a threshold voltage. However, we find that the stimulation with trains of identical pulses at voltages near the threshold results in a gradual SET transition, whereby the resistive state visits a continuum of intermediate levels as it approaches some low resistance state limit. On the contrary, RESET transitions from low to high resistance states proceed in a gradual way under voltage ramp stimulation, while gradual resistance changes driven by trains of identical spikes cover only a limited resistance window. The results are discussed in terms of the relations among the thermo-electrochemical effects of Joule heating, ion mobility, and resistance change, which provide positive and negative closed loop processes in SET and RESET, respectively. Furthermore, the effect of the competition between opposite tendencies of filament dissolution and formation at opposite metal/HfO2 interfaces is discussed as an additional ingredient affecting the switching dynamics