-
-
News
News Highlights
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueWhat's Your Sweet Spot?
Are you in a niche that’s growing or shrinking? Is it time to reassess and refocus? We spotlight companies thriving by redefining or reinforcing their niche. What are their insights?
Moving Forward With Confidence
In this issue, we focus on sales and quoting, workforce training, new IPC leadership in the U.S. and Canada, the effects of tariffs, CFX standards, and much more—all designed to provide perspective as you move through the cloud bank of today's shifting economic market.
Intelligent Test and Inspection
Are you ready to explore the cutting-edge advancements shaping the electronics manufacturing industry? The May 2025 issue of SMT007 Magazine is packed with insights, innovations, and expert perspectives that you won’t want to miss.
- Articles
- Columns
- Links
- Media kit
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
A Look at Medical Electronics Design and Assembly Challenges
December 26, 2018 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamEstimated reading time: 9 minutes
We recently spoke with Dr. Despina Moschou, lecturer at the University of Bath, as well as Kaspars Fricbergs, VP of global quality, and Tom Reilly, director of marketing and sales operations, of EMS firm Vexos Corp., to learn more about the challenges and opportunities in medical electronics design and assembly, as well as the relevant regulatory and supply chain issues.
Stephen Las Marias: Tell us more about yourself, Despina, and your lab-on-a-chip project.
Dr. Despina Moschou: I always start by introducing people to what lab-on-a-chip is in general. Lab-on-a-chip is not my invention—I have to be very clear on that. Professor George Whitesides from Harvard and Professor Andreas Manz first suggested it. They came up with this idea in the mid-1990s. The concept was miniaturizing a complete biomedical laboratory in a microchip. This vision is what we, the scientific community all over the world, have been trying to do for the past 20–30 years.
Before I became involved in this field, my original background was purely electronics. I’m an electronics engineer, I graduated from Athens, and I have a Ph.D. in microelectronics. During my first post-doctoral research, I ran into the field of lab-on-a-chip—in particular, microfluidic devices. Since then, I have been involved in that because the impact of this technology is enormous once it reaches everyday life.
What does this technology do? Imagine if you could have the whole biochemical laboratory on your hand. Wouldn’t that be cool? And apart from being cool, let’s assume we have a biomedical laboratory such as a health-care facility. What do you do when you want to identify a diagnosis? Either you or your doctor will take a sample—such as blood, urine, or any other kind of biological sample—and will take a bottle of it and ship it to a laboratory. The laboratory will do an analysis. It will take a few hours, days, or even weeks, and then you will receive the results. This is the current routine in health-care practice for all kinds of diseases, whether infectious, routine checking, or monitoring your pregnancy or cancer treatment. Wouldn’t it be great if we could avoid all the delays? How different would it be if instead of taking things to the laboratory, we could bring the laboratory to the people who need it.
And because you don’t have to delay, treatment can start immediately. You wouldn’t have to wait. Starting treatment is extremely important for overcoming any kind of disease. It will also have a huge impact in environments and countries where you don’t have access to health-care facilities whatsoever, such as remote islands or low- and middle-income countries where you don’t have access to health-care facilities with laboratories. In all of these cases, having a miniaturized laboratory can make a huge difference. This is roughly the vision of what we are trying to realize with our Research at the University of Bath.
Barry Matties: The technology itself is really interesting because they’re using these miniature micro-pumps to move fluid around, and the idea was to actually incorporate it into the build of the circuit board. And it’s really a game-changer. What’s interesting about this also is it’s one and done, meaning you use it, you throw it away and you buy more. So, from a consumption point of view, millions and millions of units will be sold. And you’ve already had success in creating the lab onboard and doing diagnostics, correct?
Moschou: Yes, we have.
Matties: This really goes with the continued desire for smaller, faster electronics, more affordable, and it’s going to revolutionize the way that medical diagnostics is done.
Moschou: Exactly. What I have been driving for the past few years is trying to implement Lab-on-Chip technology on PCBs. At the moment, and ever since the invention of lab-on-a-chip, every research laboratory in the world has been using their own in-house technique to fabricate those devices. We don’t have lab-on-a-chip technology with one way to manufacture things. In electronics, we have PCBs. We have the standard card that we all use to simulate and design boards, and manufacturers globally that have standardized procedures because this is an industry that’s been around for many years.
In lab-on-a-chip, this is not the case. We are still at the research stage and are gradually transitioning into actual commercialization of devices the past few years. One of the problems delaying this process is that we don’t have factories. We don’t have a lab-on-a-chip factory where I can make something in my lab, design it, and then I can go and get millions of them. This is why I have been trying and persisting on the lab-on-PCB approach because we can actually use the factories that are out there right now fabricating electronic boards and transition into something more advanced—something smaller and more intelligent that can add further functionality to the electronic boards. This time, we can incorporate miniaturized channels to transport the liquids and the fluids that we want to analyze, which are called microfluidic tunnels. We can have analytical biomedical devices on a PCB.
This is not conceptual. I have been presenting for the past few years on the projects and prototypes we have made. We started making things in the lab with PCB technology, but lately, I’ve been working with several manufacturers around the world. I have shown several prototypes for many applications—mainly medical applications—involving DNA and protein detection for different cancer diagnoses. Currently, we are working in the lab on several of the prototypes for diagnosis. It’s a proven concept. It can be done.
Page 1 of 2
Suggested Items
Copper Price Surge Raises Alarms for Electronics
07/15/2025 | Global Electronics Association Advocacy and Government Relations TeamThe copper market is experiencing major turbulence in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 50% tariff on imported copper effective Aug. 1. Recent news reports, including from the New York Times, sent U.S. copper futures soaring to record highs, climbing nearly 13% in a single day as manufacturers braced for supply shocks and surging costs.
Delta Electronics Thailand Ranked Among Asia’s Top Corporates at the Alpha Southeast Asia 15th Institutional Investor Awards
07/14/2025 | Delta ElectronicsDelta Electronics (Thailand) Public Company Limited, a global leader in power management and smart green solutions, has been recognized by global investors for its excellence in investor relations and corporate governance, earning top ranking in the “Most Improved Investor Relations” at the Alpha Southeast Asia 15th Annual Institutional Investor Awards for Corporates, held on June 30, 2025, in Singapore.
Kimball Electronics' Pride Month Celebrations
07/14/2025 | Kimball ElectronicsAt Kimball Electronics, we believe in fostering a culture of inclusion, respect, and belonging. This June, our global teams came together to celebrate PRIDE Month with meaningful actions that reflect our commitment to the LGBTQ+ community.
NOTE Posts Interim Report for Q2 2025
07/14/2025 | NOTENOTE reports stable second-quarter results for 2025 with continued profitability and strong cash flow, reaffirming its growth strategy despite a challenging market environment.
Scanfil, MB Elettronica to Join Forces
07/14/2025 | ScanfilFinnish Scanfil, the largest European stock exchange listed Electronic Manufacturing Service company in terms of turnover, and Italian MB Elettronica (“MB”) from Cortona Arezzo have agreed to join forces.