A field-programmable pin-constrained digital microfluidic biochip

As digital microfluidic biochips (DMFBs) have matured over the last decade, efforts have been made to 1.) reduce the cost, and 2.) produce general-purpose chips. While work done to generalize DMFBs typically depends on the flexibility of individually controlled electrodes, such devices have high wiring complexity, which requires costly multi-layer printed circuit boards (PCBs). In contrast, pin-constrained DMFBs reduce the wiring complexity, but reduce the flexibility of droplet coordination. We present a field-programmable pin-constrained DMFB that leverages the cost-savings of pin-constrained designs, but is general-purpose, rather than assay-specific. We show that with just a few more pins than the state-of-the-art pin-constrained designs, we can execute arbitrary assays almost as fast as the most recent general-purpose DMFB designs. Copyright © 2013 ACM

A field-programmable pin-constrained digital microfluidic biochip.

International audienceNote sous Conseil d'Etat, 23 mai 2003, Communauté de communes Artois-Ly

A field-programmable pin-constrained digital microfluidic biochip

As digital microfluidic biochips (DMFBs) have matured over the last decade, efforts have been made to 1.) reduce the cost, and 2.) produce general-purpose chips. While work done to generalize DMFBs typically depends on the flexibility of individually controlled electrodes, such devices have high wiring complexity, which requires costly multi-layer printed circuit boards (PCBs). In contrast, pin-constrained DMFBs reduce the wiring complexity, but reduce the flexibility of droplet coordination. We present a field-programmable pin-constrained DMFB that leverages the cost-savings of pin-constrained designs, but is general-purpose, rather than assay-specific. We show that with just a few more pins than the state-of-the-art pin-constrained designs, we can execute arbitrary assays almost as fast as the most recent general-purpose DMFB designs. Copyright © 2013 ACM

A low-cost field-programmable pin-constrained digital microfluidic biochip

This paper introduces a field-programmable pin-constrained digital microfluidic biochip (FPPC-DMFB), which offers general-purpose assay execution at a lower cost than general-purpose direct addressing DMFBs and highly optimized application-specific pin-constrained DMFBs. One of the key cost drivers for DMFBs is the number of printed circuit board (PCB) layers, onto which the device is mounted. We demonstrate a scalable single-layer PCB wiring scheme for several FPPC-DMFB variations, for PCB technology with orthogonal routing capacity of at least three; for PCB technology with orthogonal capacity of two, more PCB layers are required, but the FPPC-DMFB retains its cost advantage. These results offer new insights on the relationship between PCB layer count, pin count, and cost. Additionally, to reduce the execution time of assays on the FPPC-DMFB, we present efficient algorithms for droplet routing, with and without contamination removal via wash droplets