30/12/2025
(Hybrid session. For online attendance registration link in first comment)
The development of integrated sensor systems is undergoing a paradigm shift. Traditional approaches rely either on highly specialized ASICs, which provide accuracy and efficiency but are expensive and inflexible, or on general-purpose platforms such as microcontrollers and FPGAs, which offer programmability but fall short in power efficiency, multifunctionality, and form factor adaptability. As sensor applications diversify across healthcare, wearables, IoT, and Industry 4.0, these limitations have become increasingly restrictive.
This talk will present recent advancements in Universal Multimodal Actuator Sensor Chips (UMASCs)—a new design paradigm that merges the precision of ASICs with the versatility of programmable systems. UMASCs achieve universality in two dimensions:
•Functional universality, through the reuse of mature analog/mixed-signal building blocks (amplifiers, ADCs, DACs, current conveyors, waveform generators) across diverse modalities such as electrophysiology, electrochemical sensing, optical monitoring, and mechanical or thermal measurements.
•Form factor universality, by enabling implementation in bulk CMOS, ultra-thin silicon dies, hybrid systems-in-foil, and organic or printed non-organic electronics, making them suitable for applications ranging from implantable biosensors to large-area distributed systems.
The biomedical domain serves as natural proving ground, where multimodality and compact integration are urgently required. Case studies will demonstrate applications in neural recording and stimulation, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and wearable optical monitoring. Beyond healthcare, the UMASC framework extends to IoT, predictive maintenance, smart labels, Industry 4.0, and edge AI, establishing it as a platform technology rather than a niche solution.
By bridging circuit universality with form factor adaptability, UMASCs provide a pathway toward standardized, scalable, and flexible sensor platforms capable of addressing diverse application spaces without fragmenting design efforts. This vision opens new opportunities for both academic research and industrial innovation in integrated circuits.
