The Fluidigm System starts with their Integrated Fluidic Circuits. The Product Manager who is intimately familiar with the IFC’s is Yong Yi. I spoke with him about this system and he helps explain what the IFC’s do and can do for a client company. In the picture he’s holding one of their chips containing an IFC.

It’s all about miniaturization and therefore efficiency which is particularly important in ag bio since you’re dealing with a tremendous number of samples and wide variety of species and applications. The company manufacturers the chips or IFC’s for their clients. The chips are built on semiconducter technology which uses silicon chips that allow them to be very precise. Yong says they work with a wide variety of clients including seed companies who want to use it for quality control to make sure their farmer customer is getting exactly what is ordered.

The IFC’s have become increasingly complex since they first started production and Yong says that will continue. So the chips will be able to handle increasingly complex functions as time goes on.

You can watch or listen to my interview with Yong below: