BISC: A wireless subdural BCI with 65,536 electrodes and 1,024 channels on a single CMOS chip (Nature Electronics 2025)
Summary
Columbia University and collaborators published in Nature Electronics a 50-µm-thick mechanically flexible micro-electrocorticography BCI chip (BISC) integrating 65,536 recording electrodes, 1,024 simultaneous recording channels, and 16,384 stimulation channels on a single CMOS substrate — the entire implant occupies just 3mm³, roughly 1/1000th the size of conventional BCI implants. The chip is wirelessly powered and communicates bidirectionally when implanted below the dura. Initial human pilot studies were conducted intraoperatively.
Why it matters
BISC combines electrode counts that exceed any prior ECoG device (65,536) with stimulation capability (16,384 channels) in a chip thinner than a human hair. The single-substrate CMOS design that eliminates separate amplifier, transmitter and power components is a manufacturing approach that could dramatically reduce BCI implant cost and complexity — this is the hardware architecture that next-generation clinical BCIs may be built on.
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