Breaking paradigms in biochemical sensing

By Jose Fernandez Villasenor

Originally posted on Freescale’s Medical by Design, The Embedded Beat blog

Early stage detection of potentially life-risking disease conditions, as well as easily accessible, low-cost detection devices for the general population, challenges our healthcare services. Why wait until you need a triple or quadruple coronary cardiac bypass surgery if you could easily detect at an early stage the genetic risk factors for diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, obesity or arterial hypertension? Early detection can lead to correction with appropriate medical treatment and changes to the patient’s lifestyle.

How the testing is done

The reality is these tests are not commonly screened in patients worldwide. Sometimes it is because the patient does not have regular visits to the doctor’s office and they wait until they have an annoying symptom. Other times it is because these tests are not available to the general population or doctors only screen when they are suspicious of a condition.

Karen’s blog from SEMICON West 2012

Where is the Love?

Has the romance between the MEMS and semiconductor industries started to fizzle? Or is the real issue that for new equipment vendors, the appeal and shiny/sexy new-ness of MEMS has faded as they salivate in anticipation of a switch from 300 to 450mm (with all of that sexy, new and expensive semiconductor equipment)?

In 2011, I declared that it was the “the year of MEMS” at SEMICON West in my MEMSblog, because last year, MEMS was everywhere! This year, not so much…

Don’t get me wrong; I love going to SEMICON West. I keep coming back because it’s like homecoming. I can’t walk the halls of Moscone without bumping into dozens of colleagues and MEMS Industry Group (MIG) members. This year it was even more fun, because I was armed with hundreds of adorable MIG stickers that I emblazoned/bedazzled on every MIG member (and future member) I saw.