Beyond the Bend—Next-Gen Bioelectronics for Human and Machine Synergy

In the advancing landscape of flexible, stretchable, and biointegrated materials and devices, our work is dedicated to closing the gap between electronic systems and the human body, driving innovations that are poised to reshape healthcare, environmental monitoring, and human-machine interfaces. This vision builds on flexible hybrid electronics (FHE), transformational electronics (TE), and heterogeneous integration to develop bio-compatible systems that deliver unparalleled performance, precision, and adaptability across diverse applications.

Flexible hybrid electronics mark a major step forward by merging flexible substrates with high-functioning, rigid surface-mounted components. While this integration is promising, rigid elements continue to limit the flexibility of these systems. To overcome this, our research delves into transformational electronics, utilizing silicon-based bare-die components that are mechanically thinned to improve flexibility. These advancements enable high-density integration in ultra-compact formats, paving the way for fully standalone systems that excel in energy efficiency and sophisticated data processing capabilities.

Our approach places strong emphasis on miniaturization, which reduces the system footprint and facilitates close interfacing with curvilinear surfaces, including skin and internal organs. By minimizing device size, potential applications expand, enabling precise data capture, processing, and transmission through machine learning. These data-intensive applications are particularly transformative in healthcare, where wearables must accurately record physiological signals in real-time. Examples include temperature, pressure, and biopotential sensors that inform users of critical health conditions without invasive procedures.

The field currently faces several key challenges, including the need for advanced power management, wireless data transmission, and multi-functional sensing integration. We envision the development of fully autonomous, flexible systems that integrate on-system power supplies and diverse sensors within a single platform. Our recent work, embedding these features, supports bio-compatible devices that do not require external analyzers, thereby increasing both accessibility and functionality.

Transformational electronics represent the future of flexible bioelectronics, supporting complex functions within extremely miniaturized devices. Our work pioneers the 3D heterogeneous integration of silicon components, refined through back-etch thinning techniques that yield exceptional flexibility, energy efficiency, and data-processing capabilities. This shift in device integration is essential for deploying bio-integrated systems in confined environments, extending from healthcare wearables to environmental sensors.

In this presentation, I will highlight our recent achievements, provide real-world application examples, and discuss the challenges and future directions within this field. This vision not only aims to develop the next wave of flexible, stretchable devices but also aspires to foster collaborations that create scalable solutions for applications in health, environmental monitoring, and human-machine interaction systems.