Design and Fabrication of Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Sensor Chip for Electrochemical Measurement

An electrochemical sensor has been developed on a single chip in which potentiostat and sensor electrodes are integrated. Sensor chips were fabricated using 5.0 mu m complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. All processes including the CMOS process, postprocessing for fabricating sensor electrodes and passivation layers, and packaging were performed at Toyohashi University of Technology. The integration makes it possible to measure electrochemical signals without having to use a bulky external electrochemical system. The potential between the working electrode and the reference electrode was controlled using an on-chip potentiostat composed of CMOS transistors. The chip characteristics were verified by electrochemical measurement, namely, by cyclic voltammetry. Potassium ferricyanide solution was measured to obtain results that fit well to the theoretical formula. A clear proportional relationship between peak height and the concentration of the sample solution was obtained using the proposed sensor chip, and the dynamic range obtained was 0.10 to 8.0 mM. (C) 2010 The Japan Society of Applied Physics