Microelectronic Chips for Molecular and Cell Biology

The development of microfabricated devices, manufactured in silicon, glass or plastic materials, is a well known trend in the research of novel biological techniques and tools over the last two decades, resulting in a multitude of start-up companies addressing the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostics markets. However, the idea of implementing such devices on microelectronic substrate has been introduced very recently in literature. This review aims to describe the state-of-the-art of microsystems for molecular and cell biology realized in general purpose CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) technology emphasizing the breakthroughs of this approach along with their challenges and limitations. This article discusses the most significant examples of fully tested devices up to date, pointing out a comparison with existing state-of-the-art techniques.