An Electrochemical CMOS Biosensor Array Using Phase-Only Modulation With 0.035% Phase Error and In-Pixel Averaging

Abstract

This paper presents a 16 × 20 CMOS biosensor array based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), a highly sensitive label-free technique for rapid disease detection at the point-of-care. This high-density system implements polar-mode detection with phase-only EIS measurement over a 5 kHz - 1 MHz frequency range. The design features predominantly digital readout circuitry, ensuring scalability with technology, along with a load-compensated transimpedance amplifier, all within a 140 × 140 µm² pixel. The architecture enables in-pixel digitization and accumulation, which increases the SNR by 10 dB for each 10× increase in readout time. Implemented in a 180 nm CMOS process, the 3 × 4 mm² chip achieves state-of-the-art performance with an rms phase error of 0.035% at 100 kHz through a duty-cycle insensitive phase detector and one of the smallest per pixel areas with in-pixel quantization.