Scientists of the „Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden“ have developed circuits that are able to process chemical rather than electronic information. These integrated circuits (ICs) are based on two special inventions: For the first time, the scientists succeeded in assembling so-called microfluidic circuits, or labs-on-a-chip, by employing methods used in building electronic circuits. The microfluidic circuits consist of stacked and structured layers of special materials forming the microfluidic components. In microelectronics, this method to assemble circuits makes it possible to produce extremely powerful microprocessors containing more than 2 billion components, increasingly with continuously improved production techniques more and more components can be placed on a single chip. This development may now be expected for lab-on-a-chip technology as well.

Chemical transistors are the second invention. Instead of controlling electron flows, as in electronic transistors, they control liquid flows depending on the concentration of distinct substances – the chemical information. This capability enables the chemical transistors to process chemical information by evaluating whether a threshold concentration of the substance has been reached and therefore allowing or prohibiting the flow of the substance. The scientists from Dresden used the chemical transistors to process chemical control signals to facilitate a purely chemical chip control. This may sound complicated and a little bit crazy; but it is in fact very easy and effects an extremely improved performance of lab-on-a-chip technology. Electronic computer, control software and electromechanical control system necessary for the operation of former lab-on-a-chip systems can be completely dispensed with, since the chemical chip control is completely integrated in the circuit.

The scientists consider the chemical circuits as a core of future chemical computers. Instead of performing a few dozen analyses in chemical, biological or medical laboratories by hand, based on these new circuits chemical computers will be able to perform thousands of analyses in one day. The possibility to easily perform analyses with thousands of individual experiments opens new opportunities for medical diagnostics, life science and industry. Additionally, these chemical circuits will be cost-efficient. They are made entirely of plastics and the production costs will scarcely exceed the costs of conventional sets of instruments, like titer plates.

R. Greiner, M. Allerdissen, A. Voigt, A. Richter: Fluidic microchemomechanical integrated circuits processing chemical information.Lab Chip, 2012, 12 (23), 5034 – 5044, DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40617A

Photodownload  (Photo: Rinaldo Greiner)

Further information:
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Richter
Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden, TU Dresden
Institute of Semiconductors and Microsystems
01062 Dresden
phone: +49 (0) 351 463-32025, -36336
fax: +49 (0) 351 463-37280