Microfluidic structures for large-scale manufacture combining photo-patternable materials

Abstract

A novel application of SiNR, a photo-patternable adhesive material, commonly used for wafer bonding, is proposed as a promising option for fabricating, at industrial scale, fully assembled microfluidic devices at wafer level with resolution down to 15 μm. A self-sealing microchamber for real-time PCR analysis combining laminated SiNR dry films with in situ photo-patterned hydrogel passive valves is presented

Challenges for Microelectronics in Non-Invasive Medical Diagnostics

“…Additive manufacturing (3D printing of plastic filaments or resins) [ 33 ], the micro-milling of rigid plastics (such as polycarbonate and PMMA) and laser ablation are all promising techniques for the fabrication of microchannels that, unfortunately, are all characterized by the sequential operation of a single machining head, not easily scalable to mass production. An emerging solution that can better suit the industrial manufacturability of biochips is represented by photo-patternable dry resists, such as SiNR [ 34 ]. Finally, the standardization of the design flow and of fluidic components and interconnects (similar to that of an electronic design) is still a chimera in this field and should be pursued in order to achieve market success in genomics and real-time, as well as point-of-care diagnostics, with the same effort that was devoted to the integration of the sample preparation on-chip.…”