Online Synthesis of MEDA Biochips with Area and Reliability-Aware Module Placement using Chamber-Less Virtual Topology
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Real-time execution of bioassays on microelectrode dot array (MEDA) biochips can revolutionize point-of-care diagnostics. Despite numerous design automation efforts for digital microfluidic biochips (DMFBs), there is no online synthesis framework for their advanced counterpart, MEDA biochips, which have various operational advantages. The DMFB-specific virtual topology [Grissom et al., TCAD, 2014] is inadequate for MEDA synthesis as it suffers from significant chip-area fragmentation issues. In this article, we propose a virtual topology that provides an abstraction of the physical geometry of MEDA biochips, thereby reducing the algorithmic runtime for MEDA synthesis by reducing the search space for optimization problems. On top of this, we propose an A rea-efficient O nline P lacer ( AOP ) to achieve placement results with minimum chip-area. However, due to the overuse of some microelectrodes, they may be degraded, which may result in unreliable outcomes of the bioassays. P lacement R eliability E nhancer ( PRE ) is proposed to improve the reliability of MEDA chips. Finally, a F ast O nline S ynthesis ( FOS ) is proposed for MEDA based on the virtual topology and these two methods, which always outperform the existing online synthesis in the average assay completion time and the number of routing sub-problems. Simulations confirm that AOP significantly reduces both occupied area and algorithmic runtime compared with state-of-the-art WLSM and RLPM , albeit at the expense of reliability. By integrating PRE , AOP+PRE achieves reliability similar to WLSM and RLPM , but requires additional chip area compared with AOP while maintaining similar runtime efficiency. Hence, AOP+PRE enables efficient and reliable online synthesis for MEDA biochips.
DOI: 10.1145/3774890
Authors: Tamal Mandal, Debraj Kundu, Sudip Roy
Language: English
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4415915217