A Self-Contained Miniaturized PCR System using Electromagnetic Actuators

In this paper, the development of a portable polymerase chain reaction (PCR) device is presented. The fully integrated self-contained system consists of four major parts: a disposable chamber chip with micro-channels and pumping membranes, a heater chip with micro-heaters and temperature sensors, a linear array of electromagnetic actuators, and a control/sensing circuit. The system can be fully operated with a 5V DC voltage, and does not require any external air compressor or bulky power supply. The size of the whole system is 67 mm times 66 mm times 25 mm, and is smaller than a PDA cell-phone. The miniaturized PCR system not only has the advantage of smaller size, less consumption of DNA solution, but also can effectively reduce the PCR process time into one-third of the time required by typical commercial PCR system.