LAB VS. FACTORY

PDMS doesn't scale

Casting PDMS is mostly hand work: mixing, pouring, peeling and punching each chip. That is perfect for ten chips and impossible for ten million.

Research uses PDMS; products use plastic.

INJECTION MOULDING

Seconds per part

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How Molten plastic is forced into a precision steel or nickel mould, then cooled and ejected

Speed A part every few seconds to a minute

Cost Moulds can cost tens of thousands of dollars, but then each part costs cents

Catch Changing the design means a new mould

Injection moulding is how most disposable diagnostic cartridges are made.

OTHER METHODS

Embossing, milling and lasers

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Hot embossing

A heated stamp presses channels into a plastic sheet, even roll-to-roll

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Micromilling

A tiny spinning cutter carves channels directly

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Laser cutting

Cut channels into plastic or tape layers and stack them

Each method sits somewhere between fast-to-start and cheap-per-part.

3D PRINTING

File to chip in hours

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Resin printers (stereolithography and digital light processing) can print closed channels a few hundred micrometres wide in one piece, with no bonding step. Resolution and resin biocompatibility are still catching up with moulding.

3D printing is closing the gap between prototype and product.

IDEA TO PRODUCT

Plan the scale-up

A design that works in PDMS may fail in plastic: surfaces, stiffness and bonding all change. Testing in the final material early avoids expensive surprises.

Change the design while it is cheap; freeze it before the mould.

UNIT 10 STUDY COMPLETE

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Ready for the Fab Challenge?

You've compared ways to make chips at scale and followed the path from a prototype to a product.