Integrated Sensor Arrays for Biological and Chemical Analysis

Abstract

The present invention relates to devices and chips comprising large scale chemical field effect transistor arrays including an array of sample retention regions capable of retaining a chemical or biological sample from a sample fluid for analysis. In one aspect, such an array of transistors has a pitch of 10 μm or less, and each sample retention region is located on at least one chemical field effect transistor arranged to generate at least one output signal, which signal is consistent with such related to the characteristics of the chemical or biological sample in the sample retention area. In one embodiment, said chemical or biological sample is characterized by the concentration of charged species, and wherein each of said chemical field effect transistors is an ion-sensitive field effect transistor having a floating The dielectric layer is in contact with the sample fluid and is capable of accumulating charge in proportion to the concentration of charged species in the sample fluid. In one embodiment, such charged species are hydrogen ions, whereby the sensor measures the change in pH of the sample fluid in or near its sample retention zone. The devices and chips of the present invention may be suitable for large-scale pH-based DNA sequencing and other bioscience and biomedical applications.

Description

[0001] related application [0002] This application claims under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) U.S. Provisional Applications 61 / 196953, 61 / 198222, 61 / 205626, and claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §120 to U.S. nonprovisional applications 12 / 474897 and 12 / 475311, filed May 29, 2009, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. technical field [0003] The present disclosure relates generally to semiconductor chips for performing chemical measurements, and more particularly to single-chip ISFET arrays (and arrays of single-chip ISFET arrays) for monitoring one or more analytes. Background technique [0004] Fast and accurate measurement of biological and chemical analytes is important in many fields ranging from diagnostics to industrial process control, environmental monitoring, scientific research. Chemically sensitive (especially ion-sensitive) field-effect transistors (respectively "chemically-sensitive field effect transistor, chemFET" and "ion-sensitive field ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Such an effort faces several difficult technical challenges, especially when ISFET sensor arrays have scales exceeding thousands of sensor elements and hundreds of sensor elements / mm 2 when the density

Such challenges include fabricating large-scale arrays with sensor elements that have uniform performance characteristics across sensors within the array, and fabricating sensor elements with a micron-scale footprint that can generate signals that can be obtained from the sensor array itself. and fluidic systems that transport reactants or analyte-containing samples to the array are detected over the background of many noise sources

For ISFET arrays containing sensor elements with charge-sensitive components such as floating gates, the former challenge is exacerbated by the accumulation of charge trapped in or near these components, a common feature of semiconductor fabrication technology. by-product

The latter challenge is exacerbated by the requirement that the target analyte directly or indirectly generate charged species that accumulate at or on the charge-sensitive component of the ISFET sensor

In very dense arrays, diffusion, analyte or surrogate reactivity, cross-contamination from adjacent sensors, and electrical noise in the sample fluid can adversely affect measurements

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