A CMOS sensor array IC of nanowell devices for molecular sensing

The paper demonstrates a CMOS integrated sensor IC for an array of novel nanowell devices used for molecular sensing. The size of the nanowell (10-100 nm) enables high-fidelity detection and analysis through broadband dielectric spectroscopy (BDS) of the parallel-plate capacitor formed by the nanowell and the trapped molecule. The signal transduction is done by a novel, continuous-time detector circuit followed by a low-noise lock-in architecture which measures the admittance of the sensor as a function of frequency for BDS. The CMOS IC has a capacitance resolution of 14 aF (frequency ∼1 Hz to 1 GHz) and power consumption of only 30 μW/channel. The CMOS front-end is implemented in TSMC 018 μ technology.