University of Macau

Pui-In Mak

Rui Paulo Da Silva Martins

Zhicheng Lin

Yanwei Jia

Seng-Pan U

Tianlan Chen

Cheng Dong

Ka-Fai Un

Jie Gao

Rui P Martins

Man-Kay Law

Mang-I Vai

Fujian Lin

Chi-Seng Lam

Ren Shen

Haoran Li

Chak-Fong Cheang

Zhiyuan Chen

Zushu Yan

Rui-Paulo Da Silva Martins

Liang Wan

Zhicong Huang

Ka-Meng Lei

Wei-Han Yu

The present disclosure discloses an enhancing agent and a kit for enhancing nucleic acid amplification reaction and a method for performing nucleic acid amplification reaction, relating to the field of biotechnology. The enhancing agent disclosed in the present disclosure has a domain capable of binding to fluorescent dye and a quenching group for quenching fluorescence emitted by the fluorescent dye bound to the domain binds. As the binding affinity between the above domain and the fluorescent dye is lower than the binding affinity between a target amplification product of nucleic acid amplification reaction and the fluorescent dye, the enhancing agent not only can reduce inhibition of high-concentration fluorescent dye to amplification reaction, but also can enhance signal intensity of the fluorescent dye in the nucleic acid amplification reaction based on microfluidic chip, improving reliability of application of the fluorescent dye as amplification indicator on the microfluidic chip.

Enhancing agent and kit for enhancing nucleic acid amplification reaction and method for performing nucleic acid amplification reaction

Provided is a digital microfluidic device for quick polymerase chain reaction. The digital microfluidic device includes an enclosed chamber for holding droplets comprising PCR mixtures. The chamber has an upper layer and a lower layer, which provide a top heater and a bottom heater contained in a thermal electrode respectively to form dual heaters. The lower layer further has an array of electrodes and a dielectric layer, e.g. Norland Optical adhesive 61, coating thereon. Such arrangement of the digital microfluidic device allows quick and homogeneous heating of droplets to lower the heating voltage, shorten the reaction time, and prevent the dielectric layer from breakdown during the thermal cycle.

Digital microfluidics for polymerase chain reaction

An exemplary embodiment of the present invention is a wireless power transmission circuit that provides power to a load of variable resistance with an alternating current (AC) power source induced at a secondary coil in a secondary side of the circuit by a primary coil in a primary side of the said circuit. The wireless power transmission circuit includes a switch-controlled capacitor (SCC) and a semi-active rectifier (SAR). The SCC connects to the AC power source. The SCC includes a first capacitor connected in parallel with two electrically controllable switches in series. The SAR connects to output of the SCC for rectifying the output of the SCC, wherein the SAR comprises a bridge circuit that includes two electrically controllable switches. A control angle of the SCC and a conduction angle of the SAR are regulated to provide a load impedance that matches the impedance of the coils.

Wireless charging circuit and system

A flipping-capacitor rectifier circuit that enhances an output power of a piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH). The flipping-capacitor rectifier circuit includes a flipping capacitor, a plurality of switches, and an active rectifier. The flipping capacitor is connected in parallel with the PEH and forms at least three reconfiguration phases by turning on one or more of the switches. The active rectifier connects with the flipping capacitor in parallel and rectifies an AC voltage of the PEH. The flipping capacitor flips a voltage across a capacitor of the PEH to enhance the output power of the PEH by extracting power from the capacitor of the PEH.

Flipping-capacitor rectifier circuit

A palm-size portable &#x3bc;NMR relaxometer system for performing multi-step multi-sample chemical/biological assays, comprising a PCB having a CMOS &#x3bc;NMR transceiver and a DMF device integrated thereon. A portable magnet has an inner gap configured to at least partially receive the DMF device. The DMF device comprises a platform of electrodes including a sensing site and receives one or more samples for analysis at an electrode and automatically transports the one or more samples on individual paths sequentially to the sensing site, for performing sensing on each sample sequentially. A Butterfly coil disposed on the PCB and underneath the DMF device and is at least partially received in the inner gap. The Butterfly coil excites the sample at the &#x3bc;NMR sensing site by transducing a magnetic field produced at the sensing site to an electrical signal which is processed by the CMOS &#x3bc;NMR transceiver to produce an analytical signal.

Palm-size &#x3bc;NMR relaxometer using a digital microfluidic (DMF) device and a semiconductor transceiver for chemical/biological diagnosis

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, a control-engaged electrode-driving method for droplet actuation is provided. The method includes, a first pulse is provided to a first electrode for kicking off a droplet till a centroid of the droplet reaching a centroid of the first electrode. A second pulse is provided to a second electrode when a leading edge of the droplet reaching the second electrode.

Cooperative-electrode driving technique for droplet-velocity improvement of digital microfluidic systems

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, a control-engaged electrode-driving method for droplet actuation is provided. The method includes, a first voltage is provided to a first electrode for licking off a droplet. A second voltage is naturally discharged to a third voltage for maintaining a droplet movement. A fourth voltage is provided to the first electrode for accelerating the droplet. Naturally discharging from the second voltage to the third voltage and providing the fourth voltage to the first electrode are repeated. The first voltage is provided to a second electrode when a centroid of the droplet reaching a centroid of the first electrode. Naturally discharging from the second voltage to the third voltage and providing the fourth voltage to the second electrode are repeated.

Electrode-voltage waveform for droplet-velocity and chip-lifetime improvements of digital microfluidic systems

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, a digital microfluidic system is provided. The digital microfluidic system includes a device, a control electronics, a field programmed gate array (FPGA), and a computer. The device includes a droplet on an electrode array, where the electrode array includes a plurality of electrodes. The control electronics connects to the device and provides an actuation pulse to the electrodes, where the control electronics generates a capacitance-derived frequency signal. The FPGA connects to the control electronics and collects the capacitance-derived frequency signal. The computer connects to the FPGA, the computer uses a frequency of the capacitance-derived frequency signal to calculate a precise droplet position and generates a duration voltage signal.

Electronic module for real-time droplet-position sensing and driving in digital microfluidic system

The present invention discloses a gain-boosted n-path passive-mixer-first receiver. According to another aspect of the present disclosure, a gain-boosted n-path passive-mixer-first receiver is provided. The receiver includes a number n of switch-capacitor (sc) sets, a resistor, and a transconductance amplifier. The sc sets connect in parallel, and the sc sets have a first node and a second node. The resistor connects to the first node. The transconductance amplifier connects to the resistor and the second node.

Gain-boosted n-path passive-mixer-first receiver with a single mixing step

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, a radio-frequency-to-baseband-function-reuse receiver with shared amplifiers for common-mode and differential-mode amplification is provided. The receiver includes two set networks connected in parallel. The set networks includes a first and a second input capacitors, a first and a second output capacitors, a first transconductance amplifier having an input terminal, a second transconductance amplifier having an input terminal, a first switch, and a second switch. The first and the second input capacitors connect to a first node. The first and the second output capacitors connect to a second node. The first transconductance amplifier connects between the first input capacitor and the first output capacitor. The second transconductance amplifier connects between the second input capacitor and the second output capacitor. The first switch connects between the input terminal of the first transconductance amplifier and the second node. The second switch connects between the input terminal of the second transconductance amplifier and the second node.

Radio-frequency-to-baseband function-reuse receiver with shared amplifiers for common-mode and differential-mode amplification

A complex-pole load is configured as a parallel circuit, having 4 transistors arranged in pairs. Each pair of transistors has a transistor gated by a control voltage sources, and connected in parallel with a transistor diode connected for gating by the respective input. The control voltage sources result in the circuit synthesizing a first order complex pole at a positive IF (+IF) or a negative IF (&#x2212;IF) for channel selection and image rejection, offering image rejection and channel selection concurrently.

Complex-pole load offering concurrent image rejection and channel selection

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, an ultra-low voltage current reused voltage-controlled oscillator and transconductance-capacitor filter is provided. The circuit includes a voltage-controlled oscillator stacked atop a transconductance-capacitor filter. The voltage-controlled oscillator includes a node one, a node two, a node three, a node four, an inductance, a variable capacitor, a first switched element, a second switched element, a third switched element, and a fourth switched element. The transconductance-capacitor filter includes a first resistor, a second resistor, a fifth switched element, a sixth switched element, a seventh switched element, and an eighth switched element.

Ultra-low-voltage current-reuse voltage-controlled oscillator and transconductance-capacitor filter

The present invention discloses a gain-boosted N-path SC bandpass filter (GB-BPF) with a number of sought features. It is based on a transconductance amplifier (G) with an N-path SC branch as its feedback network, offering 1) double RF filtering at the input and output of the Gin one step; 2) customized passband gain and bandwidth with input-impedance match, and 3) reduced physical capacitance thanks to the loop gain offered by G. All have been examined using a RLC model of the SC branch before applying the linear periodically time-variant (LPTV) analysis to derive the R, L and C expressions and analytically study the harmonic selectivity, harmonic folding and noise. The latter reveals that: 1) the noise due to the switches is notched at the output, allowing smaller switches to save the LO power; and 2) the noises due to the source resistance and Gare narrowband at the output, reducing the folded noise during harmonic mixing.

Gain-boosted N-path bandpass filter

A single-ended-input current-reuse wideband receiver comprising (1) a stacked Radio Frequency to Baseband (RF-to-BB) front-end with an 8-path active mixer realizing RF amplification, harmonic-recombination (HR) down-conversion, and BB filtering in the current domain for better linearity and power efficiency; (2) a feedforward 8-path passive mixer enabling LO-defined input impedance matching without external components, while offering frequency-translated bandpass filtering and noise cancelling; (3) a single-MOS pole-zero lowpass filter (LPF) permitting both RF and BB filtering at low voltage headroom consumption, while easing the tradeoff between the in-/out-of-band linearity; and (4) a BB-only two-stage HR amplifier boosting the 3and 5harmonic rejection ratios (HRR) with low hardware intricacy.

RF-to-BB-current-reuse wideband receiver with parallel N-path active/passive mixers

An IF-noise-shaping transistorized current-mode lowpass filter is applied to quadrature in a balanced circuit. A first pair of transistors receiving current inputs from a mixer are connected so that each of the first pair of transistors has its gate cross coupled to the output of the other of the first pair of transistors. A second pair of transistors are connected in series with respected outputs of respective ones of the first pair of transistors and having gates connected to a first common voltage node, and a capacitance is used to connect the current inputs of one of the first and second pairs of transistors. An active inductive load is connected between the current inputs of one of the first and second pairs of transistors.

Growing community of inventors

Macau, China

Pui-In Mak