A Self-Contained Miniaturized PCR System using Electromagnetic Actuators

In this paper, the development of a portable polymerase chain reaction (PCR) device is presented. The fully integrated self-contained system consists of four major parts: a disposable chamber chip with micro-channels and pumping membranes, a heater chip with micro-heaters and temperature sensors, a linear array of electromagnetic actuators, and a control/sensing circuit. The system can be fully operated with a 5V DC voltage, and does not require any external air compressor or bulky power supply. The size of the whole system is 67 mm × 66 mm × 25 mm, and is smaller than a PDA cell-phone. The miniaturized PCR system not only has the advantage of smaller size, less consumption of DNA solution, but also can effectively reduce the PCR process time into one-third of the time required by typical commercial PCR system.