A 1024-Channel CMOS Microelectrode Array With 26,400 Electrodes for Recording and Stimulation of Electrogenic Cells In Vitro.
Marco Ballini, Jan Müller, Paolo Livi, Yihui Chen, Urs Frey, Alexander Stettler, Amir Shadmani, Vijay Viswam, Ian Lloyd Jones, David Jäckel, Milos Radivojevic, Marta K Lewandowska, Wei Gong, Michele Fiscella, Douglas J Bakkum, Flavio Heer, Andreas Hierlemann
Author Information
Marco Ballini: D-BSSE, ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland. He is now with IMEC vzw, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.
Jan Müller: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Paolo Livi: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Yihui Chen: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Urs Frey: D-BSSE, ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland. He is now with the RIKEN Quantitative Biology Center, 650-0047 Kobe, Japan.
Alexander Stettler: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Amir Shadmani: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Vijay Viswam: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Ian Lloyd Jones: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
David Jäckel: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Milos Radivojevic: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Marta K Lewandowska: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Wei Gong: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Michele Fiscella: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Douglas J Bakkum: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Flavio Heer: D-BSSE, ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland. He is now with Zurich Instruments AG, 8005 Zurich, Switzerland.
Andreas Hierlemann: Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
To advance our understanding of the functioning of neuronal ensembles, systems are needed to enable simultaneous recording from a large number of individual neurons at high spatiotemporal resolution and good signal-to-noise ratio. Moreover, stimulation capability is highly desirable for investigating, for example, plasticity and learning processes. Here, we present a microelectrode array (MEA) system on a single CMOS die for recording and stimulation. The system incorporates 26,400 platinum electrodes, fabricated by in-house post-processing, over a large sensing area (3.85 × 2.10 mm) with sub-cellular spatial resolution (pitch of 17.5 μm). Owing to an area and power efficient implementation, we were able to integrate 1024 readout channels on chip to record extracellular signals from a user-specified selection of electrodes. These channels feature noise values of 2.4 μV in the action-potential band (300 Hz-10 kHz) and 5.4 μV in the local-field-potential band (1 Hz-300 Hz), and provide programmable gain (up to 78 dB) to accommodate various biological preparations. Amplified and filtered signals are digitized by 10 bit parallel single-slope ADCs at 20 kSamples/s. The system also includes 32 stimulation units, which can elicit neural spikes through either current or voltage pulses. The chip consumes only 75 mW in total, which obviates the need of active cooling even for sensitive cell cultures.
