<i>In Vivo</i> Silicon-Based Flexible Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Monolithically Encapsulated with Biocompatible Liquid Crystal Polymers

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

<P>Biointegrated electronics have been investigated for various healthcare applications which can introduce biomedical systems into the human body. Silicon-based semiconductors perform significant roles of nerve stimulation, signal analysis, and wireless communication in implantable electronics. However, the current large-scale integration (LSI) chips have limitations in <I>in vivo</I> devices due to their rigid and bulky properties. This paper describes <I>in vivo</I> ultrathin silicon-based liquid crystal polymer (LCP) monolithically encapsulated flexible radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) for medical wireless communication. The mechanical stability of the LCP encapsulation is supported by finite element analysis simulation. <I>In vivo</I> electrical reliability and bioaffinity of the LCP monoencapsulated RFIC devices are confirmed in rats. <I>In vitro</I> accelerated soak tests are performed with Arrhenius method to estimate the lifetime of LCP monoencapsulated RFICs in a live body. The work could provide an approach to flexible LSI in biointegrated electronics such as an artificial retina and wireless body sensor networks.</P><P><B>Graphic Abstract</B>
<IMG SRC='http://pubs.acs.org/appl/literatum/publisher/achs/journals/content/ancac3/2013/ancac3.2013.7.issue-5/nn401246y/production/images/medium/nn-2013-01246y_0006.gif'></P><P><A href='http://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/nn401246y'>ACS Electronic Supporting Info</A></P>