Accelerating healthcare innovation with advanced chip technology

Healthcare is undergoing a massive transformation, driven by the convergence of data, silicon, and life sciences. A new era awaits where prevention is the norm, care becomes continuous, and health will be truly human-centered. 

As global challenges – from aging populations to chronic diseases – intensify, the demand for scalable, intelligent, and personalized solutions grows louder. Tech innovators and health professionals are shaping a future where breakthroughs are not just scientific, but societal.

Medtech, neurotechnology, and life science innovations are at the forefront of this shift enabling advanced imaging, smarter diagnostics, more responsive therapies, and deeper understanding of the human body and brain.

It’s more than evolution – it’s reinvention. And it starts with reimagining what’s possible.

Silicon platforms, the spark for healthcare innovation

Imec partners with bold innovators to turn transformative ideas into real-world impact – accelerating the journey from concept to clinic. By harnessing our deep expertise, world-class infrastructure, and pivotal role in the global tech ecosystem, we create semiconductor-enabled platforms that promise faster and more cost-effective research & development.

Even more, we guarantee a seamless transition towards low-, mid- or high-volume manufacturing, either in our 200mm and 300mm cleanrooms – imec Leuven, or imec Spain for non-standard materials  – via IC-Link, or at partner foundries in our ecosystem. 

Imec partners with universities and research centers worldwide. For example, in the world’s leading region for biotechnology, imec has set up the imec’s Massachusetts Center of Excellence to empower collaborations with leading research entities, thereby accelerating innovation at the intersection of biotechnology and semiconductor technology. In the Netherlands, imec, Wageningen University & Research (WUR), Radboud University (RU) and Radboudumc, with support from the Province of Gelderland, founded OnePlanet. It's an innovation center for nano- and digital technology for applications in agriculture, food, health and environment.

Imec is uniquely positioned to post-process commercial wafers with advanced functionalities, offering a high degree of customization and material flexibility.

Examples include:

• Photonic components on top of CMOS imagers to  make e.g. a spectrometer
• Combining electrodes and CMOS ASICs to enable high-resolution and smart neuroprobes and miniature DNA synthesis systems
• Silicon-based microfluidic filters, sorters, microreactors on top of steering electronics
   

White paper: monolithic microsystems

Elevate your application with advanced functionalities on top of CMOS

Download white paper

This capability transforms standard chips into intelligent platforms for next-generation health solutions – making them faster, smarter, and radically more user-friendly. Whether it's enabling integrated microphysiological systems, neurotech solutions, or technologies for proteomics and protein engineering, imec bridges the gap between cutting-edge technology and practical, scalable healthcare applications.

With imec, the future of health isn’t just possible – it’s manufacturable.

Enabling the future of life science tools

The life sciences are entering a new era – one driven by tools that can decode biology with unprecedented precision and scale. We believe the resulting data will drive fundamental understanding but also enable new treatment options and therapies, some of which may be tailored to individual patients.

Imec is convinced it can support this wave with silicon-based platforms, and chip technologies designed to:

• Study the building blocks of life at a lower cost with higher throughput chips for advanced omics, NGS, proteomics and spatial omics.
• Enable high-throughput chip and system solutions that accelerate research and discovery.
• Generate scalable datasets for accurate preclinical models, powering AI-driven insights and predictions.
• Advance next-generation therapies and biomanufacturing, by providing scalable platforms for development and manufacturing of cell and gene therapy (ATMP).
• Support the rise of generative biology and protein engineering to create novel biological solutions.

Imec’s expertise in these fields spans a wide range of advanced technologies, including photonics, microfluidics, MEMS, imagers, micro-electrode arrays, surface modification and encapsulation, and solid-state nanopores. Also, integrated systems are being developed such as

• Microphysiological systems
• Tools for in-line bioprocess monitoring
• Synthetic biology tools
• High-throughput cytometry and cell sorting systems
• On-chip computational imaging for cells and molecules.

Interested in turning your idea into a manufactured product? Contact us to discover our wide range of technologies, mature technology platforms, high-end infrastructure, and collaboration models.

Want to turn science innovations into real-world impact?

Learn more about our semiconductor-driven deep-tech support

Imec’s technology for neural discovery and therapy

Despite decades of research, the nervous system remains one of the most complex and least understood systems in biology, with countless neural interactions and mechanisms still to be uncovered. The field of neurotechnology provides the tools to understand, monitor, and interact with the nervous system – both central and peripheral.

The sector faces significant challenges: developing tools that operate at relevant biological scales, managing vast and complex neural data, ensuring biocompatibility and long-term stability, and translating lab-based innovations into manufacturable, clinically viable solutions.

Imec develops advanced tools to decode and interact with the nervous system – supporting both neuroscience discovery and clinical innovation.

Our offering includes:

• Neuropixels probes for large-scale, high-resolution brain recordings
• Low-power, low-noise ASICs for neural recording and stimulation
• Process technologies enabling bio-compatible interfacing
• Miniaturization and advanced integration to facilitate minimally invasive surgical procedures
• Custom modules – connectivity, power source, stimulation, encapsulation, compute integration, sensing – for seamless system-level integration

With deep expertise in microelectronics and system design, imec delivers scalable neurotechnology solutions that connect cutting-edge research with real-world healthcare applications.

A key example is imec’s work on precision neuromodulation for selective peripheral nerve stimulation (sPNS), where advanced chip technology enables targeted interaction with specific nerve fibers. This includes a novel approach – intermittent interferential current stimulation (i²CS) – which was successfully validated in collaboration with the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research.

Contact us if you want to know why imec is the ideal partner for companies seeking to accelerate neurotech research, development, and scalable manufacturing.
 

Smart medtech enables connected and closed-loop care

Medical solutions that combine sensing, connectivity, data processing, and actuation will shape the future of our healthcare. These systems go beyond traditional devices by integrating real-time monitoring, feedback loops, and decision-making capabilities – often powered by AI or embedded computing. Think for example of closed-loop implants, innovative imaging solutions, smart pills, and wearable and in-vivo health monitoring sensors.

The field faces significant challenges:

• Prioritize miniaturization to enhance user comfort and adoption.
• Seamlessly integrate silicon-based technologies with biological systems through advanced biocompatibility.
• Guarantee long-term, stable performance in vivo, with optimized power efficiency and reliability.
• Address the complexity of system architecture, validation, and safety – especially in closed-loop applications.
• Develop scalable solutions to process and interpret large volumes of physiological data into meaningful, actionable insights.

Imec acts as an R&D and manufacturing partner for smart medtech companies, offering a toolbox of technologies for miniaturized systems combining medical efficacy with advanced integration, communication, powering, etc. Explore our technologies for implantable devices, ingestible sensors and sampling pills (developed at OnePlanet Research Center), imagers, Speckle sensing, ultrasound transducers (PMUTs), and in-vivo health monitoring.

Interested in how these innovations can support your product roadmap? Reach out to our experts for a tailored discussion and discover how imec can accelerate your medtech development.
 

Go from R&D to development and manufacturing with IC-Link

Are you ready to accelerate your path from concept to production?

Learn about IC-Link

Trusted custom chip manufacturing by IC-Link

Imec's health-technology offering is complemented by IC-Link, imec's full-service division for custom IC manufacturing, offering ASICs in CMOS, including the most advanced commercially available nodes, imec-developed integrated photonics, and custom wafer processes, resulting in imagers and detectors, and CMOS post-processing implementations.

Available services range from design and IP selection to advanced packaging, testing and qualification, and supply chain management. You can choose between multi-project wafer (MPW) runs for cost-effective prototyping and dedicated full-mask production for volume scaling.

IC-Link provides health companies with a reliable pathway for building custom chips that meet strict performance, quality, and longevity requirements. Its focus on supply‑chain security, long‑term availability, and certified manufacturing makes it especially valuable for companies developing regulated health devices.

Read how other companies worked with IC-Link in these stories of Atlas Data Storage, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Capri-Medical.

Work with us

Working with imec means gaining access to a flexible, end-to-end innovation pipeline tailored to your needs. Whether you're exploring a new concept or scaling toward production, we offer multiple engagement models – from intake conversations and concept design to feasibility studies, proof-of-concept development, and prototype manufacturing, to low- and high-volume production.

Imec not only helps you to address technological challenges. Thanks to our thorough knowledge of the health and pharma sector, we function as your full-fledged strategic partner – right down to venturing support.

Click the contact button below to reach out.