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BioFlex : Facts & Figures BioFlex is an IWT (Flemish Community) funded project in the frame of the SBO (Strategic Basic Research) Programme (contract number IWT-040101). Some key figures :
The BioFlex vision In the current modern “Information Technology” (IT) and “Ambient Intelligence” society more and more electronics systems accompany the citizen. This is also the case for biomedical applications. The electronic systems, used either outside the body (extra-corporal monitoring, stimulation,…) or inside the body (implants) show an increasing degree of complexity. It is clear that this enhanced functionality may not lead to a decrease in comfort for the user. Therefore the increased complexity must be combined with advanced electronics packaging and interconnection solutions, so that compact and lightweight systems become available, which do not hamper the comfort of the user. Ideally the electronics should be almost non-noticeable to the user. It is clear that in this perspective, the electronics should preferably take the shape of the object in which they are integrated. Therefore, there is currently a strong tendency to replace common rigid electronic interconnection substrates and assemblies by mechanically flexible equivalents. In industrial applications in general and in biomedical applications in particular, this trend is only starting, and considerable R&D effort is necessary to increase functionality of flexible electronics systems. Biocompatible mechanically flexible electronics are virtually non-existing today. Moreover, in order to reach the “summum” of comfort, for many biomedical applications, the electronics should not only be flexible, but also stretchable to a certain extent, in order to follow all movements and deformations of the body parts onto/into which they are integrated. It is precisely this novel technology platform of stretchable biocompatible flex electronics that the proposed BioFlex project is intending to develop. It is certain that an increase of functionality, combined with an increase in comfort, as targeted by BioFlex, will generate many new applications, which now are still in a visionary stage Project synthesis The purpose of this proposal is to focus on a new form of packaging and interconnection of implantable electronics. By using flexible and even stretchable geometries instead of the usual rigid bodies that are exclusively used today as implants, the proposed BioFlex project on ‘Biocompatible flexible and stretchable electronic circuits’ will be able to seriously shift the frontiers of what is acceptable today. If the electronics behave like the tissues itself, one can really speak of biocompatible or bio-identical devices. Essential aspects are the creation of biocompatible layers on top of flexible substrates containing their interconnects and components. Several approaches are possible, amongst which the simplest one is the use of single layer flexible prints, covered by a hermetically sealed and biocompatible layer. Once this is achieved, the next step is to incorporate components on this single layer substrate. In order to guarantee its hermeticity, a sandwich structure will be elaborated, that fully encapsulates the components, realising the required interconnects at the same time. This sandwich hence consists of two flex prints, facing each other and enclosing the thinned components in between them. A final hermetic and biocompatible layer must be added to ensure and allow use in a biological environment. The next step is to not only ascertain the flexibility of the substrate, but also to make it stretchable. This in itself is a major challenge, and it will be the main focus of the proposed BioFlex project. Efforts will be pursued to select and develop a range of suitable polymer materials, and research will be carried out to deposit or coat interconnecting layers for this purpose. This must result in a substrate of, finally, a similar complexity of the first (flexible-only) version, with a stretchability of typically 10%, with an E-modulus as low as possible. The activities with strongest innovative character and highest technological risk are listed below :
Valorisation potential In order not to miss any chances for valorisation and exploitation of the BioFlex results, a clear valorisation strategy will be put in operation. The creation and monitoring of a users group plays an important role in this strategy. Because BioFlex is envisaging long-term research with high potential but where at the same time it is initially very difficult to give a detailed specification for the valorisation of the results a valorisation strategy in eight phases is proposed. Other elements of the valorisation strategy are :
BioFlex project consortium The consortium of the proposed BioFlex project is multidisciplinary and consists of four partners :
The Thin-Film Components Group (TFCG), involved in the proposed BioFlex project as the project coordinator, is specialized in packaging technologies (laminate, thick and thin films, flex boards) and assembly (flip chip, wire bonding, bumping, SMT, adhesive assembly) on various substrates (silicon, ceramics, PCB, plastics…), optical interconnection and opto-electronics packaging, microdisplays and mixed signal IC design. 15 people, all with university degree, are working on the interconnection/assembly/substrate technology. The group is a multidisciplinary team, bringing together expertise from electronics, mechanics, physics and chemistry. This is particularly useful in areas such as interconnection technology where a variety of technical and scientific problems have to be tackled. The group has a large experience in participation in and co-ordination of EC funded projects, such as the recently started SHIFT FP6 Integrated Project on ‘Smart High-Integration Flex Technologies’. This project will provide the multilayer flex technology with embedded and assembled components needed for the development of the biocompatible non-stretchable flex substrate in the proposed BioFlex project. The goal of SHIFT is precisely the development of multilayer flex with embedded and assembled components, however not targeting biocompatibility, which is an additional feature, to be developed by BioFlex. The fact that IST SHIFT Integrated Project and the proposed SBO BioFlex project are both coordinated by TFCG will obviously facilitate the transfer of information from one project to the other and will guarantee cross-fertilisation. The objective of the MCP (Microsystems, Components, Packaging) Division of IMEC is to do pioneering research in the field of high-density packaging for ambient intelligence. The support of local companies and the collaboration with Flemish universities are central in the strategy of MCP. Three core activities of the division are involved in this project :
The Polymer Materials Research Group (PMRG) of the department on Organic Chemistry of the Universiteit Gent consists of 20 employees, including 12 PhD students and 3 postdoctoral researchers, under the supervision of Prof. Etienne Schacht. The group has a longstanding expertise in the field of functional polymers, and more specifically for biomedical applications. The group has already performed, with success, research about the development of biocompatible coatings for biomaterials. The Polymer Materials Research group at Ghent University has 25 years of expertise in the synthesis of functional polymers for biomedical applications. The group has published on biodegradable polymers, polymers carrying reactive side groups, polymer-drug conjugates. More recently, several PhD studies have been devoted to surface modification of substrates with the intention to make these materials more biocompatible or more bio-interactive. The ESAT-MICAS group of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven is the inventor of the biocompatible substrates. This is due to their 25 years of experience with the development of implantable devices, and comes as an almost natural quest for more biocompatible devices, in the real sense of the word. Not only biocompatible in the material sense, but also in terms of texture, geometry, etc. Call it body compatibility. The merge with the other partners can be considered as a dream come true for the realisation of this bold and daring idea. The MICAS group has been developing implantable as well as wearable systems over the years, starting from cochlear implants, implantable cardiovascular defibrillators, eye, heart and bladder pressure monitoring, nerve monitoring and stimulation, orthopaedic implant monitoring and many more. The MICAS group is well placed to act as the spiritual stimulator of this project, by putting all their expertise in the scale, to drive the consortium to the right insights in what is really needed in such implants. Moreover, a selection of the currently running projects can be offered as test-case for the new technologies. Besides this, the MICAS group offers both know-how on all kinds of sensors, their interface circuits and basic signal processing, as well as on telemetry of data and inductive powering of the implants. Contact For more information, contact the project coordinator : Prof. Dr. ir. Jan Vanfleteren,
IMEC/INTEC/TFCG
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Page created by Jan Vanfleteren. Latest update: 07-November-2005 |
