The light-addressable potentiometric sensor is a promising technology platform for multi-sensor applications and lab-on-chip devices. However, many prior LAPS developments suffer from their lack in terms of non-portability, insufficient robustness, complicate handling, etc. Hence, portable and robust LAPS-based measurement devices have been investigated by the authors recently. In this work, a "chip card"-based light-addressable potentiometric sensor system is presented. The utilisation of ordinary "chip cards" allows an easy handling of different sensor chips for a wide range of possible applications. The integration of the electronic and the mechanical set-up into a single reader unit results in a compact design with the benefits of portability and low required space. In addition, the presented work includes a new multi-frequency measurement procedure, based on an FFT algorithm, which enables the simultaneous real-time measurement of up to 16 sensor spots. The comparison between the former batch-LAPS and the new FFT-based LAPS set-up will be presented. The immobilisation of biological cells (CHO: Chinese hamster ovary) demonstrates the possibility to record their metabolic activity with 16 measurement spots on the same chip. Furthermore, a Cd2+-selective chalcogenide-glass layer together with a pH-sensitive Ta2O5 layer validates the use of the LAPS for chemical multi-sensor applications. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.