Design Automation Challenges for Microfluidics-Based Biochips*

Microfluidics-based biochips are soon expected to revolutionize clinical diagnosis, DNA sequencing, and other laboratory procedures involving molecular biology. As more bioassays are executed concurrently on a biochip, system integration and design complexity are expected to increase dramatically. Current techniques for full-custom design of digital microfluidic biochips however do not scale well for concurrent assays and for next-generation systemon-chip (SOC) designs that are expected to include fluidic components. We present here an overview of an integrated system-level design methodology that attempts to address key issues in the synthesis, testing and reconfiguration of digital microfluidics-based biochips. The proposed topdown design automation approach is expected to relieve biochip users from the burden of manual optimization of bioassays, time-consuming hardware design, and costly testing and maintenance procedures. 1