SEALANT

The aim of the SEALANT project is to develop a new generation of thin-film based hermetic encapsulation technology for miniaturised medical implants instead of the conventional bulky metal or glass housings used in conventional applications. This new coating approach allows a direct encapsulation of the implant components and thus a reduction of the implant size. The generic platform concept, which is to be developed in this project for Implantable Pulse Generators (IPG), PCBs and miniaturised optical implants based on thin-film LEDs, allows important material and system parameters to be extracted and design rules to be defined. Furthermore, test methods will be developed and validated to estimate the lifetime of medical implants with encapsulation and transferable to all flexible implants. The EUREKA-Eurostars initiative of the European Union has approved funding for a joint project between the companies Osypka AG in Rheinfelden, Germany, Comelec SA in LA Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, and the Institute for microsystems engineering IMTEK of the University of Freiburg and the Natural and Medical Sciences Institute NMI in Reutlingen.