Test Generation for Flow-Based Microfluidic Biochips With General Architectures

Abstract

Flow-based microfluidic biochips have become a promising platform for complex biochemical assays. As the integration of such chips is increasing, a flexible general reconfigurable platform, fully programmable valve array (FPVA), has emerged. Such a 2-D array comprises regularly arranged valves using which flow-networks with different geometry, size, and connectivity can be constructed dynamically. However, the test generation for such arrays becomes challenging due to the large number of potential flow-networks and transportation paths that can be configured on-chip. In this article, we propose a strategy to generate efficient test patterns for FPVAs based on the concepts of test paths and cuts. These patterns together can cover multiple faults in both flow and control layers. We also introduce the concept of test trees and multiple cuts for a test pattern to deal with faults in FPVAs with multiple ports. Moreover, the proposed method can be applied to generate test patterns for traditional flow-based biochips with predefined architectures. The simulation results demonstrate that defects in FPVAs can be detected reliably by a limited number of test patterns generated by the proposed method. For traditional biochips with predefined architectures, these patterns also exhibit an improved test efficiency.