Microfluidic Chip Fabrication Services
What to expect?
Our fabrication capabilities
From Prototyping to Production Scale
The core of our work is dedicated to creating custom-designed chips. We support customers throughout the entire production chain, from concept to final product, and from small-scale to volume production. Certified according to DIN EN ISO 9001 and DIN ISO 13485, we ensure compliance with regulatory standards and the highest quality for diagnostic devices.
Comprehensive design support
For optimal prototyping results, a thorough design review and clear application requirements are essential. At microfluidic ChipShop, we prioritize the final product from the start, integrating design adaptations in early stages for a smooth transition from prototype to serial production with minimal investment.
All capabilities under one roof
Our design, development and manufacturing teams are co-located, enabling the accomplishment of all development steps in-house. With all experts working side-by-side, we are able to address your inquiries and troubleshoot any issues to improve the development process of your final product throughout production.
Precision milling for all scales
We run a large precision mechanics facility specialized in the design and production of molding tools, mold inserts, and high-precision components made from polymers or metals. Our expert CAD/CAM team develops detailed design data, which is then translated into physical components using advanced precision and ultra-precision milling and turning machines. To ensure optimal accuracy, all machining takes place in a strictly climate-controlled environment, with key equipment mounted on vibration-isolated foundations for maximum stability and precision.
Precision milling of polymer subtrates
Fast track to your product – Already starting from a single piece
We offer rapid prototyping of microfluidic chips through direct precision milling of polymers. This approach delivers devices that closely resemble molded parts in both form and functionality. These prototypes can be sealed using our in-house bonding solutions, enabling immediate testing and optimization.
The primary distinction to molded parts lies in a slightly increased surface roughness inherent to the milling process. This may limit optical clarity in machined areas, making them less suitable for applications that demand high-resolution optical readouts.
From the initial design phase, we align our prototyping approach with the requirements of full-scale manufacturing – ensuring a seamless transisition from prototype to full-scale production.
- Materials: PMMA, COC, COP, PS and more
- Surface roughness: ~ 1 µm
Standard platforms as basis
Fast and cost-effective prototyping
We offer a wide range of standard formats, including microscope slides, double slides (planar or with pre-molded interfaces), and wafers in various diameters. These are available in our standard materials, serving as blanks for micromilling during prototype development.
Looking for a specific format? Customized formats are possible, but may require higher invest in specific tooling when switching to fabrication by injection molding.
Ultra-precision milling of mold inserts
For medium-scale prototyping and mass production by injection molding
Benefit from our injection molding infrastructure
By adapting your design to our standard interface platforms, you only need to invest in one mold insert, enabling a cost-effective fabrication process.
We produce our mold inserts through ultra-precision milling. They serve as masters for injection molding and can be utilized from the prototyping phase to the mass production of microfluidic disposables.
We design and manufacture all mold inserts in-house, recognizing that insert design plays a critical role in both product quality and production scalability. Our experienced CAD/CAM team is available to support design adaptations, working closely with customers to translate concepts into manufacturable solutions. The design remains the intellectual property of our customers, and each mold insert is used exclusively for the production of their custom product.
Tooling & injection molding
microfluidic ChipShop’s injection molding technique enables to transfer microstructures from a mold insert to a molded polymer part with highest precision and reproducibility.
Our in-house toolmaking department provides the entire production infrastructure required for injection molding. All of our molding machines are housed in ISO class 7 cleanrooms to meet quality standards.
We offer a wide range of standard materials, from high-performance thermoplastics such as COC, COP, PC, PS, PMMA, and PP to soft elastomeric materials like TPE. Depending on the application, parts can be produced in:
- Transparent polymers for microscope or optical readouts
- Non-transparent polymers for fluorescence-based applications e.g., black or white
- Colored polymers e.g., storage boxes according to your company´s corporate identity
- Typical minimum order quantity: 100 chips
- Surface roughness: <50 nm RMS
- Toolings for standard platforms and interfaces available
You already have a design idea?
Do you have a microfluidic chip design and want to explore its feasibility with our fabrication methods? Simply send us your CAD data – or even just a sketch – for review. Our experienced design team will assess manufacturability, recommend the most suitable fabrication approach, and propose design adaptations to help bring your concept to life.
Save costs with Standardized Platforms
To help you reduce development time and expenses, we offer a range of existing molding tools compatible with widely used interface platforms, including microscope slides, microtiter plates, and more. These standard platforms feature predefined outer dimensions and interface positions, while the bottom surface is fully customizable to accommodate your unique microfluidic design.
Instead of making a substantial investment in a dedicated tool and production infrastructure, you only need to invest once in a custom mold insert tailored to your design. This modular approach enables rapid iteration of design variants and significantly reduces the cost per unit.
Injection molding of polymer substrates
High quality substrates for microfabrication
Some materials commonly used in microfluidics are either not commercially available as planar platforms or do not meet quality requirements for special microfabrication. If you need planar substrates, for applications such as hot embossing or surface chemistry experiments, we can supply materials in standard formats, such as microscope slides, microtiter plates, or wafers in various diameters.
If your application requires a material or thickness not listed in our catalog, we’re happy to provide a customized quote tailored to your specific needs.
In addition to thicker polymer substrates, we also offer specialized foil materials – available either in roll format or as pre-cut foils in slide dimensions – suitable for a wide range of applications.
Bonding & assembly
In-house
Permanently sealed polymer disposables
Sealing of devices is handled with microfluidic ChipShop’s proprietary bonding solutions. We have developed and refined advanced bonding procedures for polymer substrates and thin polymer foils over many years to ensure optimal sealing strength, structural integrity, and biocompatibility.
We do not use any adhesives that could compromise the biological functionality of your device. Furthermore, we integrate reagents directly onto the chip, such as lyophilized PCR master mixes or antibodies, ensuring that their functionality is preserved throughout the bonding process.
We offer a wide selection of polymer foils in high optical quality suitable for bonding your microfluidic device. Our bonding solutions can accommodate the bonding of polymers of the same type, hybrid elements, or even multiplex bonding, depending on your needs.
Standard devices manufactured at microfluidic ChipShop consist of a micro-structured chip body (molded part) sealed with an unstructured polymer foil (lid). This method drastically reduces the production time per chip and simplifies the alignment, achieving low costs per piece.
For more complex devices, including multiplexed or multi-layered chips, bonding can be achieved, though the added assembly and alignment steps result in longer production times and higher costs per piece.
At customer’s side
Open chip platforms for self-assembly
For proof-of-concept development and prototyping, microfluidic ChipShop offers open chip platforms, assembled with medical-grade pre-cut adhesive tape. These platforms enable customers to easily functionalize channels or integrate reagents for a wide range of applications. Once functionalized, the channels can be sealed with a cover lid of your choice, such as a glass slide or pre-cut polymer foil.
Click here to explore all available off-the-shelf designs with open structures, ready-to-use for your experiment.
Customized open chip platforms
Upon request, we can deliver almost any of our standard chips without a cover lid. Generic design rules for customized adhesive tape cutting and other important considerations are summarized in the following guide.
Reagent integration
The use of micro- and nanotechnologies allows development of portable and easy-to-use systems with a high level of functional integration for point-of-care testing.
The realization of such “lab-on-a-chip” systems requires a full set of reagent integration technologies, enabling to embed all reagents required for the analysis. This includes liquid reagents in blisters, lyophilized reagents or spotted probes for hybridization assays.
microfluidic ChipShop’s storage concepts allow the use of standardized handling platforms and can be achieved in volume production with established fabrication methods. For proof-of-concept, simple test platforms are at hand allowing customers to evaluate and optimize their reagent storage concept for a new assay.
Liquid storage
Tanks or blister pouches
For sample loading and short-term storage, we offer a range of practical options, including tanks, sampling vessels or syringes. For long-term storage we recommend microfluidic ChipShop’s specialized blister pouches – liquid filled, sealed aluminum pouches.
Blister pouches provide a convenient way to integrate liquids directly onto the chip while ensuring reagent-dependent long-term stability. They serve as storage vessels and as controlled dispensing units; applying pressure in a defined manner enables precise fluid movement. microfluidic ChipShop‘s unique piercing blister seat technology allows for controlled liquid release.
Our blister pouches are available in different volumes ranging from 50 – 750 µl. They can be ordered as stand-alone parts or readily integrated on our off-the-shelf blister test chips for quick evaluation.
Advantages of blisters:
- Preloaded reagents
- Controlled release of liquid into cartridge
- No waste of costly reagents
- No contact with the instrument – prevents contamination
We offer filling services for customer specific reagents.
Please reach out via
Integration of Dry Reagents
Lyophilized reagent pellets
We offer the integration of dry reagents in the form of lyophilized pellets (produced either on-chip or off-chip) or dried spots — ideal for stabilizing complex reagent mixtures.
Integration of:
- PCR master mix
- PCR primers and probes
- Cell lysis reagents
- Beads for DNA extraction
- Buffer
Precision Spotting
Integration of arrays in the picoliter scale
Our in-house spotting line, located in a cleanroom environment, is dedicated to meeting your needs for precise integration of spots and arrays. We offer highly controlled spotting capabilities, with volumes down to the low picoliter range.
Dispensing of:
- DNA arrays e.g. DNA oligonucleotides, PCR primers and probes
- Protein arrays e. g. antibodies, sensors
- RNA arrays
- 3D gels
Surface modification
microfluidic ChipShop offers a range of surface coating technologies designed to tailor the surface properties of thermoplastic microfluidic devices without compromising the inherent properties of the chosen thermoplastic polymer.
One of our key offerings is hydrophilization, available for the majority of our off-the-shelf chips. Thermoplastic polymers are inherently hydrophobic, exhibiting high surface energy and large contact angles. Hydrophilization reduces these contact angles, improving wettability with aqueous solutions and lowering the inlet pressure required to achieve consistent flow rates – particularly important for capillary-driven systems.
In addition, hydrophilic surfaces promote ECM protein adsorption and improve cell attachment, making them well-suited for cell-based assays and other biological applications.
Whether you need hydrophilic, hydrophobic, or even biofunctional surfaces (e.g., collagen, silanization, …), we are happy to start a detailed discussion and find the surface modification solution best suited to your needs. Please feel free to reach out to us at inquiries@microfluidic-ChipShop.com.
Integration of hybrid elements
In our cleanroom facilities, we have the capability to integrate a variety of hybrid elements, including sensors, electrodes, valves, filtration and separation membranes, and biochemical sensors, among others.
By integrating these functions into a single chip, we eliminate many time-consuming and error-prone steps, such as repeated pipetting or sample transfers, improving efficiency and reducing the risk of errors in your workflow.
Further post-processing services
During the prototyping phase, we offer additional processing services for thermoplastic polymer parts, including:
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Mechanical processing: Drilling of holes, cutting of polymer substrates
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Structuring of foils
- Device Assembly
