Biological agent sensing integrated circuit (BASIC): A new CMOS magnetic biosensor system

In this paper, the design of a biological sensor is proposed in order to rapidly test for the presence of potential pathologic and bioterrorism agents (zoonotic microorganisms) both in specimens as well as in the environment. The sensor uses an electromagnetic detection mechanism to measure changes in the number of magnetically tagged microorganisms which are placed at the surface of an integrated circuit (IC) chip. Measured magnetic effects are transformed into electronic signals used to count the number and type of organisms present. The whole system is integrated on single chip, which makes the sensor small-sized, portable, high speed, and low cost. This novel design of the sensor head achieves ultra-sensitivity with simulation results indicating a preliminary maximum error of 2.6%. Design refinements promise to reduce this error even further.