CASFEST 2016 will highlight the topic of “Lab on CMOS Systems” and will take place in conjunction with ISCAS 2016 in Montreal. Many CAS researchers have embraced the emerging concept of directly integrating active electronics into traditional passive lab-on-chip (LOC) systems, creating a new class of lab-on-CMOS (LOCMOS) systems – highly integrated multiphysics lab on chip systems that integrate instrumentation in intimate contact with sensing and actuation capabilities.

Most lab-on-chip systems are based on passive substrates and are limited to use as passive chips in labs. These chips in labs must typically be used in conjunction with large benchtop equipment for sensing and control, missing the opportunity for systems with a smaller footprint and a instruments with their integrated circuit equivalents. In such systems, the CMOS components are often used for sensing purposes and sometimes for signal processing, detection, and actuation as well. This reduces the need for external instrumentation, leading to overall systems with significantly smaller size and also the potential for completely novel measurements that cannot be performed using traditional approaches.

The integration of active chips into lab-on-chip systems poses a number of distinct and vexing specifically attributable to biological and fluidic domains (including electrochemistry, packaging, surfaces, sterilization, microfabrication, and microfluidics), and new versions of classical challenges in system-on-chip integration.