CMOS based capacitive sensors for life science applications: A review

In recent years, there has been growing interest in developing capacitive biosensors using Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology for various life science applications including cellular growth monitoring, DNA hybridization detection, and drug tests. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of CMOS capacitive sensors featuring sensing electrodes connected to interface circuits. A capacitive biosensor is also incorporated with microfluidic structure. This paper addresses the challenges of developing high precision interface circuits for detecting small capacitance changes on sensing electrodes. Also, we discuss the practical issues in fabricating hermetic microfluidic packaging structures to direct the samples toward sensing sites and prevent the remaining part of circuitry from direct contact with the sample. By offering the advantages of low complexity and high precision, CMOS capacitive sensor arrays can be considered as an alternative candidate for high throughput screening of cellular and molecular activities. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.