Fully integrated CMOS capacitive sensor for Lab-on-Chip applications

Author

Nabovati, Ghazal ; Ghafar-Zadeh, Ebrahim ; Mirzaei, Mohammad ; Ayala-Charca, Giancarlo ; Awwad, F. ; Sawan, Mohamad

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Polytech. Montreal, Montréal, QC, Canada

fYear

2014

fDate

1-5 June 2014

Firstpage

233

Lastpage

236

Abstract

We present a new Charge Based Capacitance Measurement (CBCM) CMOS sensor for Lab-on-Chip applications. This integrated capacitive sensor consists of a fully differential capacitance to voltage converter, a sigma delta (ΣΔ) modulator, and interdigitated electrodes realized on top metal layer in 0.35 μm CMOS process. The proposed CMOS capacitive sensor offers higher dynamic-range (10 fF) and sensitivity (350 mV/fF) in comparison to our previously reported core-CBCM capacitive sensors. We proved this significant improvement by demonstrating the chemical solvent concentration measurements and discussing the potential applications in environmental monitoring and water safety applications.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; capacitance measurement; capacitive sensors; chemical variables measurement; environmental monitoring (geophysics); lab-on-a-chip; modulators; sigma-delta modulation; CMOS process; charge based capacitance measurement; chemical solvent concentration measurement; core CBCM capacitive sensor; differential capacitance to voltage converter; environmental monitoring; integrated CMOS capacitive sensor; interdigitated electrodes; lab-on-chip applications; sigma delta modulator; size 0.35 mum; water safety application; CMOS integrated circuits; Capacitance; Capacitive sensors; Ethanol; Modulation; Sensitivity;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2014 IEEE International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Melbourne VIC

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-3431-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISCAS.2014.6865108

Filename

6865108