In response to littlecorn's post on HC: For a general write up...

In response to littlecorn's post on HC:

For a general write up on MEMS, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microelectromechanical_systems. MEMS has been around for a number of years, out of the semiconductor industry, as sensors and actuators, with powerhouses like STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments (TI), Bosch and others heavily in the industry.

MEMS is a way of manufacturing very small mechanical devices and is normally an "embedded" technology in our inkjet printheads, laptop computer hard drives, air bag pressure sensors, sensors in our mobile phones and other devices to make them turn from portrait to landscape and visa versa as well as in the Wii game controllers.

What Bluechiip has done is applied MEMS technology, in itself not new, however what is new, is applying it to "memory devices" (the Bluechiip chip and tag) which uses NO electronics but acts like an electronic barcode with temperature sensing capabilities. The company has over 20 patents including over the MEMS memory device of which many have been granted in the US and Europe, thus proving that it is unique.

The application of a MEMS memory devices (chip/tag) is unique and revolutionary as the tag has no electronics, and thus can survive high temperatures (needed for plastic injection molding of vials and blood bags in the first market application), sterilization (autoclave and gamma irradiation) used to make the sample storage containers sterile for use, and then able to operate down to low temperatures of -80degC right down to liquid nitrogen temperatures of -196degC which again is where these valuable and often irreplaceable samples are stored in biobanks, IVF clinics, CROs, stem cell companies, etc.

Bluechips's MEMS devices overcomes the limitations of labels (hand-written and pre-printed), barcodes (linear and 2D) as well as RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) which is based on IC's (integrated-circuits) using electronics which don't cope well with high temperatures of plastic molding, sterilization and low-temperatures storage.

So, overall, Bluechiip has applied MEMS in a unique way, has patents granted over this, and is applying it in a first market application like no one else has done. This is a REVOLUTIONARY technology and will gain traction not only in healthcare/life sciences but in many other market applications over the years. Watch this space.....