A group of Imperial College London has reported a prototype of a disposable new coronavirus (COVID-19) detecting qPCR chip. Of course, this chip can also be used for other infections.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19911-6
The chip has a very simple structure and is built on a Si substrate (the size of the chip is about 1 cm square). The cost when manufactured with a Si 4-inch wafer was about 40 yen/chip, so it will certainly be disposable.
The temperature control of the chip is done by controlling electric current flowing in the Si substrate, and the detection is performed electrochemically using methylene blue (MB) as a redox reporter. Since MB acts also as an intercalator of DNA, the electrochemical current changes when DNA is amplified.
