Coupled electro-thermal simulation for PCR silicon chip

The microreactor for polymerase chain reaction of DNA offers the advantage of small dimensions of the probe which lead to a faster heating and cooling, and, consequently, a reduced time of analysis. The microreactor could be easily integrated in a more complex system like lab-on chip. The micro-PCR chip is made in silicon by wet etching to obtain the chambers; the platinum resistor is placed on the chip back side. For improving the thermal cycles, a precise control of temperature distribution in reaction chambers is necessary. The heating and cooling cycles simulations were made with CoventorWare2003 for two types of silicon microchip: with 1 and 4 reaction chambers. First, a coupled electro-thermal analysis was developed to establish the voltage-temperature distribution dependence for heating cycle. In a second step, the result file was used as input file for a transient simulation to establish the time for thermal transfer from heating elements to DNA probes.