Lab-on-a-Chip
Technology May Present New ESD Challenges

By Steve Fowler

For news on this technology please visit the following web sites:

Lab-On-A-Chip Web Site
R&D Magazine February Issue

New technology which is sweeping the academic, medical and biological sciences may give us in the ESD community new challenges for protection against static. These new chips allow movement of liquids and analyses of biological and chemical agents on a micro-scale. ESD events could cause disruptions of the process or false indications. Only time and experience will tell.

Duke University has been working on a method for moving liquid around semiconductors. This technique uses the phenomena where water based fluids are pushed and pulled by the changing polarity of their surroundings. This produces a pumping action by Coulomb forces. Precise movement of microscopic liquids has been one of the barriers to the Lab-on-a-Chip technology.

Microfluidic chips by Nanostream use the company's technology to automate complex laboratory protocols. Nanostream states that their chip performs 24 simultaneous micro-liter scale analyses.