Breakthrough in Sensor Technology
ChipSensors Ltd, a fabless semiconductor start-up company, has unveiled a breakthrough in semiconductor technology enabling the surface of the chip itself to sense parameters such as temperature, humidity, certain gases and pathogens. The patent-pending technology exploits the fact that the dielectric material in standard sub-micron CMOS comprises porous oxides and polymers, by selectively admitting or blocking ingress of the agent to be sensed, any resulting changes in electrical characteristics can be accurately detected and measured.
The 0.13 µm sensor chip has applications such as an all-electronic replacement for the type of electromechanical thermostats and humidistats used in building management and environmental monitoring systems. ChipSensors is also currently developing an ultra-low-power wireless version of this sensor. This integrates all the signal conditioning, microcontroller, memory and RF transceiver functions onto the same chip as the sensor itself, for incorporation into passive and active ID tags.
Until now, most sensors have been manufactured on glass or ceramic substrates, using specialist materials and manufacturing processes, proving difficult, if not impossible, to accommodate within mainstream foundry CMOS processes. The wafers had to be post-processed and the sensors then required testing and calibrating after packaging, which was time-consuming and expensive.
ChipSensors' proprietary technology overcomes these obstacles. It enables sensors, signal conditioning circuits, including high resolution analog-to-digital converters and RF transceiver functions, together with the microcontroller and memory, to be integrated on a single chip, fabricated entirely from standard CMOS.
