Communications of the ACM
In Vivo Flexible Large Scale Integrated Circuits
Top: In vivo flexible large-scale integrated circuits. Bottom: schematic of roll-to-roll printing of flexible LSI on large-area plastics.
Credit: KAIST
KAIST researchers have developed in vivo silicon-based flexible large-scale integrated (LSI) circuits for biomedical wireless communications.
The researchers developed radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) interconnected with 1,000 nano-transistors on a silicon wafer using a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor process. They then removed the bottom substrate, except for the top 100-nanometer circuit layer, by wet-chemical etching. The flexible RF switches were monolithically encapsulated with biocompatible liquid crystal polymers (LCP) for in vivo biomedical applications. Finally, the researchers implanted the LCP encapsulated RFICs into live rats to demonstrate the stable operation of flexible devices under in vivo circumstances.
"This work could provide an approach to flexible LSI for an ideal artificial retina system and other biomedical devices," says KAIST professor Keon Jae Lee. "Moreover, the result represents an exciting technology with the strong potential to realize fully flexible consumer electronics such as an application processor for a mobile operating system, high-capacity memory, and wireless communications in the near future."
From KAIST
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Abstracts Copyright © 2013 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
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