Production process for photonic point-of-care cartridges (4PC)

Point-of-Care devices are broadly viewed as an important contribution to reduce the costs in our healthcare system. Cheap, quick, and reliable testing close to the point of need, can help early detection and thus reduce treatment costs, while improving the quality of life.

An important challenge in the realization is the development of the individual cartridges that should be produced in large quantities at low costs. Especially for applications where high sensitivity is required, these cartridges will typically have a complex design. In this project we want to develop a manufacturing strategy for large scale production of cartridges based on photonic sensing chips, currently the most sensitive sensors available.

A typical sensor cartridge with photonic sensors would comprise the sensor chip, an interface with active components (light source and detectors), the bio-active layer that captures the biomarkers to be detected and a protective package. In addition, there is the choice to integrate the active components in the package (making the interface an electrical one) or placing them in the read-out unit (making the interface an optical one). Finally, testing of the sensor cartridges should also be part of the process. A suitable manufacturing strategy would offer the lowest total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) of the production and use of the cartridges. Important in the considerations is that steps can be carried out at the wafer-level, at the die-level, and at the cartridge level. Because choices for a specific solution will strongly influence the possibilities for other steps, the development of a production strategy is far from straightforward. In this project we want to study the possibilities of the individual processes at the three levels mentioned (wafer, die, and cartridge), and in parallel develop a theoretical framework for finding the best strategy in this type of complex production processes.

Expected outcome and results

In this project we want to study the production possibilities of the individual components of a photonic cartridge at three levels (wafer, die, and cartridge), and in parallel develop a theoretical framework (a decision-making methodology ) for finding the best strategy in this type of complex production processes. The process flow proposed by the theoretical framework will be verified via a full process demonstrator. It is explicitly not the intention to build a prototype production line, but a flexible set-up that allows the testing of the full process. The full process line will consist of a setup that can test the chips, that can apply the bioactive layers, and that can assemble the chip into the cartridge (either with or without the active components)

This project is funded by:

SIA (Raak Pro Project)