Dear Colleagues,

Important requests from both hospital and patients coupled with an economical need for shorter hospital stay and easier aftercare have made the miniaturization of medical devices a recent priority. Electronics had to follow suit and improve in order to cope with this increasing demand. Diagnosis, monitoring and surgical equipment had to be portable, small and light, with more functionalities in order to facilitate the task of medical doctors as well as to provide reliable results for patients.

New semiconductor technologies such as complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) and optimization of microprocessors, displays, and storage units have all contributed to enhanced miniaturization capabilities. Today, medical chips are mainly digital and do not require heavy old circuitry with voluminous power supply units, like they did in the past. The new miniaturized devices consist of energy-efficient modules with efficient electrical current consumption.

In the path of miniaturization, devices such as pacemakers, cochlear implants, insulin pens, swallowable cameras (pill cameras), handheld and mobile imaging systems, surgical robotics,  laparoscopic cameras, probes, sensors, and other in vitro diagnostics tools could all be made significantly smaller while keeping or improving their existing performances. Recent advances on lab-on-a-chip (LOC) have offered the possibility to have laboratory functions on a millimeter-sized integrated circuit with fluid levels as low as pL for efficient screening.

In this Special Issue, we invite you to contribute papers with novel original research dealing with miniaturized medical devices that serve well-defined purposes in various applications. We welcome works on any of the subjects listed above and other broader topics in this category, with an emphasis on the miniaturization of electronics and circuitry, technologically informed choice, as well as patient or doctor experience improvements, clinical trials or any other advances in software and hardware pertaining to such medical devices in diminutive scale.

Dr. Maria-Alexandra Paun
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• miniaturized medical device
• diagnosis
• monitoring
• surgical
• technology
• circuitry
• patient experience
• clinical trial