Patent ID: 7799553

Claim:
A microfabricated structure comprising a distribution channel and a plurality of second channels integrated on the microfabricated structure and further comprising a plurality of microcarrier elements, wherein: (a) each of the second channels is connected to the distribution channel; (b) the distribution channel is configured to distribute the plurality of microcarrier elements, each carrying multiple clonal copies of a sequencing template, into a plurality of second channels; (c) each of the plurality of second channels comprises a thermal cycling reactor connected to a purification chamber connected to a component separation channel; (d) each of the thermal cycling reactors is configured to produce thermal cycling extension fragments from a microcarrier element located therein, the purification chambers are configured to capture and concentrate the extension fragments and the component separation channels are configured to separate the extension fragments from each other based on their relative sizes; and (e) the microfabricated structure is configured such that only one microcarrier element can pass into a particular thermal cycling reactor during distribution of the plurality of microcarrier elements from the distribution channel; wherein the distribution channels, thermal cycling reactors and component separation channels are integrated on the same microfabricated structure.