Nanoident organic fab opens, enabling cheap on-chip bio-labs

After years of development, the first organic semiconductor fabrication facility opened today in Linz, Austria. The Nanoident Organic Fab (OFAB) will produce semiconductor-based printed optoelectronics for the family companies including Nanoident Biometrics GmbH, Nanoident Biometrics SAS, and BioidentTechnologies, Inc. Organic semiconductors excel for use in the fabrication of opto devices such as LEDs andd photosensors, enabling devices as large as 5mm x 5mm with ease. In terms of production speed as well as relatively inexpensive capital equipment, the process resembles web printing more than a silicon wafer fab process. (Here's an animation of the printing process.)

Organic ICs are flexible, ultra-low-power, and relatively environmentally friendly to dispose of. As you'd expect with what is basically high-precision printing technology, the geometries are not as fine as silicon: They're currently on the order of 10 microns, but this is still small-scale enough to create basic digital circuits around the photoelectronics for on-device processing of signals. What can you do with this level of photonics and processing capability? Place your bio-specimen on the chip, add some fluorescing dye, illuminate the specimen with the IC's LED, capture the response with the photodetector, process it with the DSP, and voila: You've got a cheap, disposable, instant-reading allergic reaction lab, or a bio-terrorist scanner, or … Endless possibilities. (For more on organic circuits, see Silicon, move over: Organic circuits may be the superior technology for photosensors, -voltaics.)

Interested in starting your own organic IC R&D lab? You can buy a Dimatix materials printer for $35,000. The user-refillable cartridges go for $99 each, and are capable of printing as narrow as 20 micron line widths. Looks like in organic ICs the future is now.

UPDATE: I just heard from EDN's ace European editor, Graham Prophet, that he is at the formal OFAB opening, and posted a detailed article on OFAB from the event.