In the current pandemic situation, a scalable mobile test system would be of great advantage in areas requiring special protection. The project focus lies primarily on domestic care for elderly persons, but also on nursing homes and hospitals. Such a test system could constantly screen both patients and nursing staff in order to suppress the spread of the virus in an early stage. In addition, a use in any entity, such as schools, workplaces, flight groups, travel companies etc. is conceivable and could contribute to re-opening social life after a lock-down.

The project started in September 2020. The task of ISIT is to transfer an existing readout chip into a near-series production. The current status is that the manufacturing flow is largely set up. Missing links in the production chain have been identified as work packages for process development and are being worked on. Wafer material is being processed in the ISIT clean room for this purpose.

The goal is to hand over the manufactured and tested chips to the project consortium in cooperation with our partner Campton Diagnostics GmbH. There, it will be fit into a cartridge designed and developed in a parallel activity for use in the targeted PCR test. The consortium also aims to establish a novel PCR test procedure (neo-LAMP) to guarantee a test execution within 30 minutes.