Thanks Patmel, multiplexing is going to be the future for sure. I remember Eric Brown indicated in the TPS video that Nanodx was pursuing this with flu, but I can't remember hearing of up to 32 - that would be very cool - where did you pick that up?
In April this year, this paper from a high profile South Korean group achieved multiplexing in the lab integrated with a CMOS-compatible process, something that woud be needed to be achieved by Nanodx with the IBM top-down SiNW sensor.
From the Introduction, this paragraph seems particularly relevant, suggesting this is not easy:
As a promising application for SiNW biosensors, a multiplexed sensor is believed to be especially important for robust diagnosis of complex disease such as cancers in human blood, and to further facilitate early detection [24], [25]. In this work, SiNW FET-based and SiNW tunnel FET (TFET)-based biosensors are co-integrated with CMOS circuits by using our proposed CMOS fabrication process [26]. Especially, the possibility of multiplexed sensing with a single device is verified by the fabricated SiNW FET and TFET biosensors. Although multiplex sensing is successfully implemented in the SiNW FET sensor by using saturation and GIDL currents to detect two biomolecules independently [27], there are still serious challenges on the way to commercialization as a biomedical multiplexed sensor. Particularly, the design of read-out circuit is one of the critical obstacles since two sensing currents cannot be converted to output voltages through a read-out circuit by the significant current difference between saturation and GIDL currents. To solve these problems of FET biosensors, for the first time, we demonstrate multiplexed TFET biosensor. Different from other published works on TFET-based biosensors [28]–[29][30], the proposed sensor utilizes unique ambipolar tunneling characteristics of TFETs, which allows a distinctive detection of two bio-targets through a single biosensor with almost the same sensing currents, as well as the higher sensitivity than FET-based sensors [30]. Thanks to its area/power efficiency, the proposed sensor would be practical in multiplexed diagnostic devices, particularly the mobile appliance.
