Automated design of pin-constrained digital microfluidic biochips under droplet-interference constraints

Tao Xu, William L. Hwang, Fei Su, Krishnendu Chakrabarty
2007 ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems  
Microfluidics-based biochips, also referred to as lab-on-a-chip, are devices that integrate fluidhandling functions such as sample preparation, analysis, separation, and detection. This emerging technology combines electronics with biology to open new application areas such as point-of-care diagnosis, on-chip DNA analysis, and automated drug discovery. We propose a design automation method for pin-constrained biochips that manipulate nanoliter volumes of discrete droplets on a microfluidic
more » ... . In contrast to the direct-addressing scheme that has been studied thus far in the literature, we assign a small number of independent control pins to a large number of electrodes in the biochip, thereby reducing design complexity and product cost. The design procedure relies on a droplet-trace-based array partitioning scheme and an efficient pin assignment technique, referred to as the "Connect-5 algorithm." The proposed method is evaluated using a set of multiplexed bioassays. This article is an extended and revised version of the paper presented at the 2006 IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC) C ACM 2006.
doi:10.1145/1295231.1295235 fatcat:t6luimczujfqjjysoaoj724kka