Homogeneous droplet routing in DMFB: An enhanced technique for high performance bioassay implementation

Abstract

Digital Microfluidic Biochip, a new generation of Lab-on-chip device has emerged in the last decade as a viable alternative for conventional biochemical laboratory applications. The major advantages of such devices are its capabilities of automation, reconfigurability, flexibility, low cost, portability and precision analysis. Among other microfluidic operations droplet routing poses a critical challenge specifically due to the blockages caused by microfluidic modules. In this paper we propose a two stage routing technique for simultaneous routing while resolving issues of blockages and conflicts with other nets. Here we considered routing of homogeneous droplets where instead of crossovers, sharing of route paths among multiple nets are mainly under focus. The proposed method is simulated on two different sets of testbenches namely Benchmark suite I and III respectively. The route performance measured in terms of parameters namely latest arrival time and cell utilization shows considerable improvement with respect to some major contemporary contributions.