TY  - JOUR
ID  - discovery1395063
N1  - Copyright © 2013 IOP Publishing Ltd.
SN  - 1741-2552
JF  - Journal of Neural Engineering
AV  - public
IS  - 3
N2  - Corrosion is a prime concern for active implantable devices. In this paper we review the principles underlying the concepts of hermetic packages and encapsulation, used to protect implanted electronics, some of which remain widely overlooked. We discuss how technological advances have created a need to update the way we evaluate the suitability of both protection methods. We demonstrate how lifetime predictability is lost for very small hermetic packages and introduce a single parameter to compare different packages, with an equation to calculate the minimum sensitivity required from a test method to guarantee a given lifetime. In the second part of this paper, we review the literature on the corrosion of encapsulated integrated circuits (ICs) and, following a new analysis of published data, we propose an equation for the pre-corrosion lifetime of implanted ICs, and discuss the influence of the temperature, relative humidity, encapsulation and field-strength. As any new protection will be tested under accelerated conditions, we demonstrate the sensitivity of acceleration factors to some inaccurately known parameters. These results are relevant for any application of electronics working in a moist environment. Our comparison of encapsulation and hermetic packages suggests that both concepts may be suitable for future implants.
Y1  - 2013/06//
VL  - 10
A1  - Vanhoestenberghe, A
A1  - Donaldson, N
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1741-2560/10/3/031002
KW  - Coated Materials
KW  -  Biocompatible
KW  -  Corrosion
KW  -  Electronics
KW  -  Medical
KW  -  Equipment Failure Analysis
KW  -  Materials Testing
KW  -  Prostheses and Implants
KW  -  Semiconductors
KW  -  Silicon
TI  - Corrosion of silicon integrated circuits and lifetime predictions in implantable electronic devices
ER  -