German-based nanoscale sensing technology developer, Digid, has been fully qualified for volume production of its miniscule temperature and force sensors. Its patented printed electronics fabrication technology is used to create the tiny sensors that are only 1µm long, one of the smallest around.
“Our sensors are so small that they cannot be seen with the naked eye. With the start of their mass production, the opportunities to embed sensing on almost any surface or in almost any device have become limitless; now it is up to the imaginations of design engineers to dream of uses for sensing where sensing has never before been possible,” said Dr Konstantin Kloppstech, Digid Chief Technology Officer.
Among the applications for Digid’s sensors is the opportunity for machines to mimic human sensory capabilities: its nanoscale printed sensors can be applied to surfaces such as a robot’s shell in arrays of up to 16 x 16 sensors.
Other applications for Digid sensors include force sensing on the blade of a scalpel in robotic surgical equipment, temperature sensing on the tip of a temperature probe used in minimally invasive surgery or inside battery cells, for safety and performance monitoring, biosensors for detecting biological objects such as viruses, or the chemical markers of drugs in the bloodstream, and many more. Digid holds ISO 13485:2016 certification for the design and manufacture of medical devices.
Digid supplies the sensor and sensor assembly, backed by hardware and software integration support. The sensor provides either a voltage or resistance measurement output via an I2C interface. Digid signal processing software converts the raw measurement outputs to useful temperature or force data.
Next, Digid plans to make sensors only 10nm long.
