View source for Teabiscuits

{{Short description|Custom electronics platform of the demonpore 64 nanopore console}}
{{Further|demonpore 64}}
'''Teabiscuits''' (written Teabiscuits™ in company materials) is the name of the custom electronics platform of the [[demonpore 64]], the nanopore reader that [[demonpore, inc.]] built in the shape of a 1980s game console. The company's records give its specification as picoampere to nanoampere currents at a bandwidth of 125 kHz, with a pore cartridge that can be swapped in under 20 seconds.<ref name="records" /> An outside electronics designer produced the core of the electronics in 2020 and 2021.<ref name="string" /> A board with the same name was built in early 2024, and the amplifier chip that it tested appears in the company's open design of 2026.<ref name="records" /><ref name="github" />

== The platform ==
The December 2022 overview of the company says that the console was designed "from the inside out, starting with the most technically demanding part", a custom patch-clamp amplifier, which measures the current through a pore at a voltage that the user sets. Around the amplifier sat an analog-to-digital converter, a digital-to-analog converter and a microcontroller. The console took its power over USB and talked to the company's server over Ethernet.<ref name="overview" /> The amplifier is the first link of what electronics engineers call an [[analog front end]]. In a nanopore instrument that link is usually a [[transimpedance amplifier]], which turns the pore's current into a voltage that is filtered and handed to the converter.

A bandwidth of 125 kHz means that a step in the current can rise in about 2.8 microseconds, if the front end behaves as a single-pole low-pass filter, for which the rise time from 10 to 90 percent is 0.35 divided by the bandwidth.{{efn|1=For a single-pole low-pass filter the 10 to 90 percent rise time is 0.35 / ''f''<sub>3 dB</sub>, which is 0.35 / 125,000 Hz = 2.8 µs.}} A converter has to sample at more than twice the bandwidth to keep what the amplifier passes, so a front end of this bandwidth needs more than 250,000 samples per second. Noise grows with bandwidth, which is why a wider front end sees faster events and a noisier trace; see [[Nanopore noise]] and [[Bandwidth (signal processing)]].

== Development ==
The core electronics were designed in 2020 and 2021 by an outside electronics designer, and another contributor led the enclosure and the flow cells.<ref name="string" /> The console never went on sale. Of it the founder wrote in 2026 that the company "should have shipped in a form very close to the one seen, very early on. But we didn't."<ref name="overview" />

The name survived the console. Company records show a board called Teabiscuits Bias r2, built on a protoboard called Colorful Flavor in early 2024, to try the LMP7721, a precision amplifier with an input bias current of 3 femtoamperes typically and 20 femtoamperes at most.<ref name="records" /><ref name="lmp">{{cite web |url=https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/lmp7721 |title=LMP7721 datasheet |publisher=Texas Instruments |access-date=2026-10-25}}</ref> The same chip is the first stage of the older handheld [[MR1 Molecular Streaming Device]] and of the open [[MR1 Nanopore Reader]].<ref name="records" /><ref name="github" />

== Front ends of the company's instruments ==
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Current measurement in the company's instruments, with the figures the company gives
! Period !! Instrument !! Front end !! Figure
|-
| 2015 to 2016 || First sliding-occlusion runs || Benchtop picoammeter || Display readout
|-
| 2020 to 2021 || demonpore 64 || Teabiscuits || 125 kHz bandwidth
|-
| 2025 to 2026 || MR1 Molecular Streaming Device (described) || LMP7721, 16-bit converter || 10 to 125 kilosamples per second
|-
| 2026 || [[Live molecular stream]] || [[EDR4]] amplifier, a commercial unit || 200 kHz sampling
|-
| October 2026 || MR1 Nanopore Reader (design) || LMP7721 and a second stage || 100 kHz sampling
|}
Bandwidth, in the second row, and sampling rate, in the others, are different quantities.<ref name="records" /><ref name="github" />

== See also ==
* [[Pre-Wright Brothers Flights]]
* [[Picoampere]]

== Notes ==
{{Notelist}}

== References ==
{{Reflist|refs=
<ref name="records">{{cite web |title=Company records |publisher=Molecular Reality Corporation |date=October 2026}}</ref>
<ref name="string">{{cite web |title=Sequencing a string |author=Kemmishtree |website=EQBio-OS |date=2026-03-29}}</ref>
<ref name="overview">{{cite web |title=2022 sci-tech overview |author=Kemmishtree |website=EQBio-OS |date=2026-03-28}}</ref>
<ref name="github">{{cite web |url=https://github.com/EpicQuestBio/MR1 |title=MR1 Nanopore Reader |website=GitHub |date=2026-10-16}}</ref>
}}

{{Molecular Reality}}

[[Category:Molecular Reality Corporation]]
[[Category:Nanopore instruments]]
[[Category:Electronics]]