A fast routability- and performance-driven droplet routing algorithm for digital microfluidic biochips

Abstract

As the microfluidic technology advances, the design complexity of digital microfluidic biochips (DMFB) are expected to explode in the near future. One of the most critical challenges for DMFB design is the droplet routing problem, which schedules the movement of each droplet in a time-multiplexed manner. In this paper, we propose a fast routability-and performancedriven droplet router for DMFBs. The main contributions of our work are: (1) a global moving vector analysis for constructing preferred routing tracks to minimize the number of used unit cells; (2) an entropy-based equation to determine the routing order of droplets for better routability; (3) a routing compaction technique by dynamic programming to minimize the latest arrival time of droplets. Experimental results show that our algorithm achieves 100% routing completion for all test cases on three Benchmark Suites while the previous algorithms are not. In addition to routability, compared with the state-of-theart high-performance routing on the Benchmark Suite I [3], the experimental results still show that our algorithm performed better in runtime by 40%, reduced the latest arrival time by 21%, reduced the used unit cells by 10%. Furthermore, experiment results on Benchmark Suite II and III are also very promising. Based on the evaluation of three Benchmark Suites, our algorithm demonstrates the efficiency and robustness of handling complex droplet routing problem over the existing algorithms.

Fast online synthesis of generally programmable digital microfluidic biochips

“…Cho and Pan [4] route droplets one-by-one and sort them based on a bypassability metric; if a deadlock occurs, droplets are moved to concession zones to break the deadlock. Huang and Ho [9] construct a system of global routing tracks, which are aligned in the same direction as the majority of droplets traveling on that tract. They use an entropy-based equation to determine the order in which droplets are routed, and finally, compact the routes using dynamic programming.…”

“…Since the aforementioned methods were designed for offline routing, few mention runtimes [3][4] [27]. BioRoute [31] and Huang's algorithm [9] both report runtimes below 1s on a desktop PC. The router used in our online flow, in contrast, achieves comparable runtimes on an Intel Atom TM processor.…”

Fast Online Synthesis of Digital Microfluidic Biochips

“…Since the aforementioned methods were designed for offline routing, few mention runtimes [5], [6], [29]. Bio Route [34] and Huang's algorithm [12] both report runtimes below one second on a desktop PC. The router used in our online flow, a modified version of Roy's maze router [22], achieves comparable runtimes, while achieving deadlock freedom.…”

“…Cho and Pan [6] route droplets one-by-one and sort them based on a by passability metric; if a deadlock occurs, droplets are moved to concession zones to break the deadlock. Huang and Ho [12] construct a system of global routing tracks, which are aligned in the same direction as the majority of droplets traveling on that tract. They use an entropy-based equation to determine the order in which droplets are routed, and finally, compact the routes using dynamic programming.…”

Interpreting Assays with Control Flow on Digital Microfluidic Biochips

“…A typical compilation sequence is shown in Figure 3. The DAG is first scheduled [Ding et al 2001;Ricketts et al 2006;Su and Chakrabarty 2008;Grissom and Brisk 2012b;O'Neal et al 2012]; dimensions for each operational module are selected [Su and Chakrabarty 2005;; scheduled operations are then placed onto the 2D grid, ensuring that no concurrently executing operations overlap to prevent interference [Su and Chakrabarty 2006b;Yuh et al 2007;Liao and Hu 2011]; lastly, non-interfering droplet routes are computed to deliver droplets to the appropriate DMFB locations at appropriate times [Su et al 2006;Bohringer 2006;Cho and Pan 2008;Yuh et al 2008;Huang and Ho 2009;L'Orsa et al 2009;Roy et al 2010Roy et al , 2012Singha et al 2010], in some cases, all of these problems can be solved in conjunction with one another .…”