Enhancing the Reliability of MEDA Biochips Using IJTAG and Wear Leveling

Abstract

A digital microfluidic biochip (DMFB) enables the miniaturization of immunoassays, point-of-care clinical diagnostics, DNA sequencing, and other laboratory procedures in biochemistry. A recent generation of biochips uses a micro-electrode-dot-array (MEDA) architecture, which provides fine-grained control of droplets and seamlessly integrates microelectronics and microfluidics using CMOS technology and a TSMC fabrication process. To ensure that bioassays are carried out on MEDA biochips efficiently, high-level synthesis algorithms have recently been proposed. However, as in the case of conventional DMFBs, microelectrodes are likely to fail when they are heavily utilized, and previous methods fail to consider reliability issues. In this article, we first present a new microelectrode cell (MC) design such that the droplet-sensing operation can be enabled/disabled for individual MCs. Next, “partial update” and “partial sensing” operations are presented based on an IEEE Std. 1687 IJTAG network design. Finally, wear-leveling synthesis method is proposed to ensure uniform utilization of MCs on MEDA. A comprehensive set of simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed hardware design and design automation methods.