BioRoute: A Network-Flow-Based Routing Algorithm for the Synthesis of Digital Microfluidic Biochips

Abstract

Abstract-Due to recent advances in microfluidics, digital microfluidic biochips are expected to revolutionize laboratory procedures. One critical problem for biochip synthesis is the droplet routing problem. Unlike traditional very large scale integration routing problems, in addition to routing path selection, the biochip routing problem needs to address the issue of scheduling droplets under practical constraints imposed by the fluidic property and timing restriction of synthesis results. In this paper, we present the first network-flow-based routing algorithm that can concurrently route a set of noninterfering nets for the droplet routing problem on biochips. We adopt a two-stage technique of global routing followed by detailed routing. In global routing, we first identify a set of noninterfering nets and then adopt the network-flow approach to generate optimal global-routing paths for nets. In detailed routing, we present the first polynomial-time algorithm for simultaneous routing and scheduling using the global-routing paths with a negotiation-based routing scheme. Our algorithm targets at both the minimization of cells used for routing for better fault tolerance and minimization of droplet transportation time for better reliability and faster bioassay execution. Experimental results show the robustness and efficiency of our algorithm.Index Terms-Detailed routing, digital microfluidic biochips, global routing, network-flow-based algorithm.

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

“…Since Benchmark Suite I has only source cells on the boundary of the microfluidic array which is not common for existing bioassays, we create significantly 10 harder test cases to demonstrate the performance of our algorithm, which becomes Benchmark Suite II for evaluation. Benchmark Suite III consists of four widely used bioassays from [10,14]. Table II shows the overall comparison results from the widely used prioritized A*-search [1], network-flow-based algorithm [14], and the high-performance routing algorithm [3], and ours.…”

“…Benchmark Suite III consists of four widely used bioassays from [10,14]. Table II shows the overall comparison results from the widely used prioritized A*-search [1], network-flow-based algorithm [14], and the high-performance routing algorithm [3], and ours. The results of the competitors are from [3].…”

“…Experimental results show that our algorithm achieves 100% routing completion for all test cases on three Benchmark Suites while the previous algorithms are not [1,3,14]. In addition to routability, compared with the state-of-the-art high-performance routing on the Benchmark Suite I [3], [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%.…”

“…Su et al proposed a two-stage algorithm that adopts maze routing followed by random selection and scheduling for selected routing paths [10]. Yuh et al also proposed a two-stage algorithm of global routing followed by detailed routing [14]. In global routing, it adopts network-flow-based global routing algorithm to route a set of non-interfering nets concurrently.…”

Nonlinear Dual-Phase Multiplexing in Digital Microfluidic Architectures

“…This adds a heightened level of complexity for systems operating with multiple microdrops, as careful path planning, scheduling, and routing [24,25] will be required to avoid inadvertent actuation of neighbouring microdrops along the length of activated electrodes.…”