A cell impedance sensor based on a silicon cochlea

In this paper, we present the design of an integrated CMOS sensor for cell impedance measurement. To achieve simultaneous measurements over a wide frequency range, the impedance sensor has been developed using silicon cochleae as both the input stimulus generator and the output frequency analyzer. This solution, inspired by the accuracy and efficiency of biological systems, has several advantages. The silicon cochlea is able to make measurements over a very wide frequency range (from Hz to MHz) with variable resolution. Power consumption of the sensor is below 30 ¿W due to the biasing regime used in the silicon cochleae. Furthermore, the implementation of the sensor is fully autonomous requiring no reference clocks or signal generators, facilitating integration into larger cell analysis systems.