A 4x16 Arrayed Current Sensing Front-End Chip for DNA Sequencing

This paper presents a $4 \times 16$ arrayed current sensing front-end chip design for fast DNA sequencing. The chip includes 16 capacitive trans-impedance amplifiers and 16 voltage-to-time conversion circuits. This reduces the array sensing time to $40 \ \mu \text{s}$, as the sensing time of single DNA base is $10 \ \mu \text{s}$, with a current resolution as low as 5 pA, the conversion accuracy and efficiency are greatly improved. The chip is designed and fabricated in 180-nm CMOS process and Operates at a voltage of 1.8 V. The results show that the current sensing rang is from 10 pA to 200 pA, which refers to a nanopore resistance ranging from $600 \text{M} \Omega$ to $10 \text{G} \Omega$.