Innovations in Silicon
Expect the unexpected
Luc Van den hove, President and CEO of Imec, talks CIE through some of the innovative projects being undertaken at the research centre in Leuven
I
n the early 1980s the Flemish Government looked to establish a programme that would support the development of a microelectronics industry in Flanders. The initial programme saw the setting up of a laboratory for advanced research into microelectronics and the founding of Imec in 1984. A non-profit organisation Imec is a world leading base for research into nanoelectronics and looks to leverage a broad range of partnerships with ICT, healthcare and energy companies as it looks to develop relevant technologies for an ever broadening range of industries and services.
The organisation’s headquarters are located in Leuven, around twenty miles to the east of Belgium’s capital Brussels, with additional branches in the Netherlands, Taiwan, the US, China, India and Japan.
The research centre, which is currently being dramatically expanded, currently consists of over 2,000 staff including more than 650 industrial residents and guest researchers who have been attracted to this centre of R&D from around the world. Luc Van den hove, the President and CEO of Imec since July 2009, started his career with Imec back in 1984 and is also a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Leuven. In addition he is also a member of the Technology Strategy Committee of ASML. According to Van den hove “Imec aims to shape the future working with our research partners to develop nano-enabled solutions that will allow people to have a better life in a sustainable society.” Speaking at a media event held in
Imec’s offices last month he talked to CIE about some of the projects that are
currently under development. The High-Content, High-Throughput cell sorter is one such project and is being developed to provide early diagnosis of cancer.“Cancer is a severe illness and puts considerable pressures on the individual, their family and society in general. At Imec we’re looking to develop a cell sorter device that is capable of identifying a tumour cell that may be circulating around the body. It’s a tremendous challenge to be able to identify a single cell and an extremely sensitive system is required to do this,” Van den hove explains. “At present to be able to do this
requires intense manual operation and very sophisticated and expensive tools are required and, unfortunately, despite our best efforts many of the results are inaccurate. The tools being used are simply not sensitive enough. “We’ve decided to take a more engineering and automated oriented approach and have developed the High Throughput cell sorter.”
Disease-indicating molecules tend to be found at very low concentrations so that their detection requires controllable and reliable sample preparation that in turn
Luc Van den hove
requires increasingly sensitive detectors. The single cell sorter provides an easy- to-use and cost-effective diagnostic system. A blood sample is loaded onto the device and then past through a micro- fluidic channel, no bigger than a single cell. The device is able to record the pattern and structure of individual cells, all of which is managed by a single ASIC. Tiny micro-heaters are then used to generate steam bubbles that separate out the single cells (white cells and potential cancer cells) which can then be analysed further.
“Silicon technology will allow us to integrate thousands of these devices onto a single chip. This device will not only be extremely sensitive and more accurate but will have the capability of processing up to 20 million images per second. It enables us to run the cell analysis that is usually conducted in laboratory by the patient’s bedside.”
The idea is that such a disposable chip could be loaded with not just a sample of blood, but saliva or urine and then quickly analyzed using a smartphone, tablet or computer, making diagnostic testing faster and easier for applications such as disease monitoring and management, disease surveillance, rural health care and clinical trials.
“The cell sorter is just one of a number of tools we are currently developing to improve medical care. Thanks to silicon technology we can revolutionise healthcare when it comes to patient care and illness diagnosis but also in terms of research.”
Imec is currently working with the Johns Hopkins University to develop this next generation of “lab on a chip” concepts based on Imec’s technology. “The relationship with Johns Hopkins is an important step toward creating a powerful cross-disciplinary ecosystem with consumer electronics and mobile companies, medical device manufacturers, other research centres and the broader bio-pharma and semiconductor industries, to create the combined expertise that will be required to address these huge healthcare challenges,” explains Van den hove.
Life sciences
In terms of life science research Imec is now partnering with Intel and Janssen Pharmaceuticals, as well as five Flemish
32 November 2013 Components in Electronics
www.cieonline.co.uk
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