A 24-μm-pitch microelectrode array (MEA) with 6912 readout channels at 12 kHz and 23.2-μVrms random noise is presented. The aim is to reduce noise in a “highly scalable” MEA with a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor integration circuit (CMOS-MEA), in which a large number of readout channels and a high electrode density can be expected. Despite the small dimension and the simplicity of the in-pixel circuit for the high electrode-density and the relatively large number of readout channels of the prototype CMOS-MEA chip developed in this work, the noise within the chip is successfully reduced to less than half that reported in a previous work, for a device with similar in-pixel circuit simplicity and a large number of readout channels. Further, the action potential was clearly observed on cardiomyocytes using the CMOS-MEA. These results indicate the high-scalability of the CMOS-MEA. The highly scalable CMOS-MEA provides high-spatial-resolution mapping of cell action potentials, and the mapping can aid understanding of complex activities in cells, including neuron network activities.
We demonstrate a 4.8-μV
rms
noise microelectrode array (MEA) based on the complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor active-pixel-sensors readout technique with disaggregated differential amplifier implementation. The circuit elements of the differential amplifier are divided into a readout pixel, a reference pixel, and a column circuit. This disaggregation contributes to the small area of the readout pixel, which is less than 81 μm
2
. We observed neuron signals around 100 μV with 432 electrodes in a fabricated prototype chip. The implementation has technological feasibility of up to 12-μm-pitch electrode density and 6,912 readout channels for high-spatial resolution mapping of neuron network activity.
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