An Efficient Capacity-based Routing Technique on MEDA-based Biochips

Abstract

Micro Electrodes Dot Array (MEDA) based biochips are emerging microdroplets handling technology that empowers supervised fluids governance on a set of microelectrodes. The MEDA-based architecture enables the dynamic routing of droplets with variable sizes for better accuracy and convenience. Efficient droplet routing with prevention of cross-contamination and maintaining all fluidic restriction is the key challenging area on the MEDA-based biochips. We use a two-stage method that involves global and detailed routing. In order to determine the route capacity of every feasible routing path for each droplet, a graph denoting the capacity has been created during the global routing phase. The proposed method assigns the priority of each net depending on the influence factors of the other nets and blockages present in the bioassay. The proposed approach enables 80% of droplet routing without any cross-contamination, based on the First Priority Movement (FPM) and Second Priority Movement (SPM) in the first stage. A capacity graph provides maximum droplets flow using FPM and finds the suitable channel to reshape the size of the droplets to avoid collision on the routing paths to accomplish 100% routing. Experimental results demonstrate that even in complex bio-assays, our proposed phase-wise router reduces 20% of the latest arrival time (T la) and minimizes 9% average time (T avg) by decreasing 15% of microelectrodes count compared to other routing protocols.