Nano and Microelectronics for Integrated Sensor Arrays

这项研究介绍了新的制造方法和集成电路，这将导致一个微型传感器平台组成的高速计算机嵌入高保真纳米传感器阵列。特别是，它将把两种先进技术，纳米器件传感器芯片和微电子计算芯片合并成一个单元。纳米器件将以非常精细的尺度（例如纳米颗粒）感知现象，并将其转化为电子信号;微电子器件将对这些信号进行灵敏的放大、数字化、计算和通信，以进行高速数字分析和显示。 这项研究的应用功能，如蛋白质分析，快速DNA测序，病毒检测，纳米粒子过滤等跨越科学，医学和工业的利益。从历史上看，从这里考虑的规模技术建立的系统大大降低了成本和可访问性等障碍。因此，这项研究不仅将导致上级粒子识别平台，而且还将大大提高人们对依赖于这种技术的应用程序的访问。 由于当代纳米传感器芯片通常缺乏固有的计算手段，而当代微电子技术通常缺乏合适的传感能力，因此需要这些技术之间的工程连接。通常，这种链路通过大规模互连来促进，从而导致庞大且昂贵的系统。将纳米传感器与计算机芯片融合不仅可以大大减小系统的尺寸，还可以通过赋予传感器智能的内部和互连来显著提高其性能。特别是，这将提高单个纳米器件的处理速度，减少长距离通信的模拟信号所产生的损耗，增加并行操作的传感器数量，并允许它们的测量结果仅在几个宽带数字通信链路中聚合。 纳米传感器与计算机芯片的融合才刚刚开始出现，包括许多未解决的挑战，本研究将寻求在特定模式的背景下解决。问题的本质还需要一个融合几个概念元素的解决方案：设备，电路和系统。 从器件的角度来看，这项研究将集中在微型制造技术，将传感器阵列粘附到计算机芯片。目前，这两者之间的微观联系仍未实现。这方面的研究将逐步从微中介层介导的连接到技术之间的直接融合。 从电路的角度来看，这项研究将集中在高速，低噪声模拟电路的设计，以放大低功耗信号从传感器。它不仅在核心性能方面，而且在扩展到比目前设想的更多渠道的能力方面，都将超越其他工作。它将从现有电子设备的优化到采用外来集成电路技术以提高速度和降低功耗，逐步向前推进。 从系统的角度来看，这项研究将集中在一个有效的数字读出系统的设计，能够充分采样和通信放大的模拟信号到外界。对于所考虑的传感器，即使对于单个通道，目前也不存在这样的集成系统，更不用说庞大的读出阵列了。这项工作将作为一个开创性的概念验证，显示在纳米传感器网络上下文中处理许多异步通道的有效手段。它还将解决电子干扰和可持续的热量和物理足迹等基本问题。

This research introduces new fabrication methods and integrated circuits that will result in a miniscule sensor platform consisting of a high-speed computer embedded with a high-fidelity nanosensor array. In particular, it will physically merge two advanced technologies, nanodevice sensor chips and microelectronic computing chips into a single unit. The nanodevices will sense phenomena at very fine scales (e.g. nanoparticles) and turn them into electronic signals; the microelectronics will perform sensitive amplification, digitization, computation, and communication on those signals for high-speed digital analysis and display. The applications of this research to functions such as protein analysis, rapid DNA sequencing, virus detection, nanoparticle filtering, etc. span interests in science, medicine, and industry. Historically, systems built from technologies-of-scale as considered here substantially lower barriers such as cost and accessibility. As a result, this research will lead not only to superior particle identification platforms but also greatly improve people’s access to applications relying on such technology. Since contemporary nanosensor chips often lack an inherent means for computation and contemporary microelectronics often lacks suitable sensory ability an engineered connection between these technologies is needed. Typically, such links are facilitated with macroscale interconnect resulting in bulky and expensive systems. Fusing nanosensors with computer chips will not only greatly reduce the system size, it will significantly improve its performance by endowing the sensors with intelligent intra and inter-connect. In particular this will improve the processing speed of individual nanodevices, reduce the losses accrued by analog signals communicated over long distances, increase the number of sensors operating in parallel, and allow their measurements to be aggregated in only a few broadband digital communication links. The fusion of nanosensors with computer chips has only begun to emerge and consists of many unaddressed challenges that this research will seek to resolve in the context of a particular modality. The nature of the problem also requires a solution that fuses several conceptual elements: devices, circuits, and systems. From the device perspective this research will focus on microfabrication techniques for adhering an array of sensors to a computer chip. At present a working micro-connection between these remains unrealized. This aspect of the research will advance in steps from a connection mediated by a micro-interposer to a direct fusion between the technologies. From the circuit perspective this research will focus on the design of high-speed, low-noise analog circuitry to amplify the low-power signals available from the sensors. It will surpass other work not only in its core performance, but in its ability to scale to many more channels than presently contemplated. It will advance in steps from the optimization of existing electronics to the adoption of exotic integrated circuit techniques for improved speed and low power consumption. From the system perspective this research will focus on the design of an efficient digital readout system capable of sufficiently sampling and communicating the amplified analog signal to the outside world. No such integrated system presently exists for the sensors under consideration even for a single channel, let alone a vast readout array. This work will serve as a seminal proof-of-concept showing efficient means of handling many asynchronous channels in a nanosensor network context. It will also address fundamental issues such as electronic interference and sustainable thermal and physical footprints.