IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Fall 2016 - 103

Recent Silicon Valley SSCS Chapter Activities: Seminars,
Webinars, and Short Courses

The IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) Santa Clara Valley (SCV)
Chapter held a number of seminars,
webinars, and short courses in 2016.
This article highlights recent events
held by the Chapter.

19 May 2016: Start-Up Talk
on CMOS Biochips
Speakers at the Silicon Valley SSCS
Chapter consisted of experts from academia and industry. Arjang Hassibi is
an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley coming from both worlds. He finished his
graduate studies at Stanford and later
postdoctorate at the California Institute
of Technology (Caltech) and became an
assistant professor at the University of
Texas, Austin. While in academia for the
past 15 years, he developed the technology to enable low-cost, large-volume medical diagnostic biochips using
complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology, which later
became the foundation of the start-up,
InSilixa, which he founded in 2012. His
talk was "CMOS Biochips: The Good, the
Bad, and the Hype." This seminar was
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2016.2601662
Date of publication: 14 November 2016

cosponsored by the IEEE Engineering
in Medicine and Biology Society SCV
Chapter and attracted a number of
attendees from IEEE Chapters across
Silicon Valley.

Abstract
In the past two decades, there has been
numerous attempts to take advantage
of semiconductor solutions, broadly
defined, to create high-performance
biosensors and biomolecular detection devices. The goal has always been
to create molecular diagnostics technologies that offer the cost efficiency,
miniaturization capabilities, and manufacturing robustness of consumer electronics devices. The outcome so far has
not been very exhilarating and, unfortunately, there has been few effective
products based on such efforts.
In this talk, we will discuss the use
of CMOS processes and integrated circuits for biotechnology in the form of
integrated biochips. The focus will be
not only the design, manufacturing,
and the packaging of biochips but the
biochemistry and applications requirements as well. We will also discuss
in detail a few implemented biochips
that InSilixa is currently developing for

(From left): Arjang Hassibi and Mojtaba
Sharifzadeh, SCV-SSCS Chapter vice chair,
at Texas Instruments in Santa Clara.

commercialization in the nucleic acid
(DNA/RNA) testing applications.

23 June 2016: DL Webinar Talk
on Tera-Hertz CMOS Design
and Applications
Prof. Ehsan Afshari from Cornell University gave a distinguished lecturer
(DL) seminar at the Silicon Valley SSCS
Chapter, "The Last Untapped Spectrum: Should Industry Care about Terahertz?" This seminar was cosponsored
by the IEEE Microwave Theory and
Techniques Society and was recorded
at the Maxim Inc. auditorium as part
of the webinar program. The webinar

Arjang Hassibi giving a bio-start-up talk to attendees at Texas Instruments in Santa Clara.

IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE

FA L L 2 0 16

103

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Fall 2016