Geneva, Switzerland, and Melbourne, Australia: STMicroelectronics, a supplier of microelectromechanical-systems (MEMS) devices for consumer and portable applications, and tracking solutions specialist company Bluechiip will cooperate in the manufacturing of MEMS-based tracking tags.
The Bluechiip tracking tag can read the IDs of samples in extremely high and low temperatures and is immune to gamma irradiation for performance superior to more traditional identification or tracking solutions such as labels, barcodes, or radio-frequency identification (RFID) technologies. It also provides the necessary high levels of data surety for healthcare markets like biobanking.
The global growth of biobanks has been exponential with recent studies estimating that more than 1 billion tissue samples are stored worldwide. These tags will be moulded into test tubes and vials for the biobank market to identify, track, retrieve, monitor, and store valuable human biospecimens including tissue, embryos, and cord blood in liquid nitrogen.
This new technology enables data to be read at temperatures as low as those reached in liquid nitrogen, approximately –196°C, and as high as 200°C. Data can also be transmitted through frost. Bluechiip’s tracking solution has been field-proven to survive autoclaving, gamma irradiation sterilization, humidification, centrifuging, cryogenic storage, and frosting as well.