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Testing of Low-cost Digital Microfluidic Biochips with Non-Regular Array Layouts

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Abstract

Digital microfluidic biochips with non-regular arrays are of interest for clinical diagnostic applications in a cost-sensitive market segment. Previous techniques for biochip testing are limited to regular microfluidic arrays. We present an automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) method for non-regular digital microfluidic chips. The ATPG method can generate test patterns to detect catastrophic defects in non-regular arrays where the full reconfigurability of the digital microfluidic platform is not utilized. It automates test-stimulus design and test-resource selection, in order to minimize the test application time. We also present an integer linear programming model for the compaction of test patterns, while maintaining the desired fault coverage. We utilize two fabricated biochips with non-regular microfluidic arrays to evaluate the proposed ATPG method.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Advanced Liquid Logic, Inc., for providing the commercial prototype chip. The authors also thank members of Duke University’s Digital Microfluidics Laboratory for providing the chip for DNA pyrosequencing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA

    Yang Zhao & Krishnendu Chakrabarty

  2. Advanced Computing and Microelectronics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, 700 108, India

    Bhargab B. Bhattacharya

Authors
  1. Yang Zhao
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  2. Krishnendu Chakrabarty
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  3. Bhargab B. Bhattacharya
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yang Zhao.

Additional information

Responsible Editor: M. Tehranipoor

This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant CCF-0914895. A preliminary version of this paper was published in Proc. IEEE Asian Test Symposium, 2010.

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Zhao, Y., Chakrabarty, K. & Bhattacharya, B.B. Testing of Low-cost Digital Microfluidic Biochips with Non-Regular Array Layouts. J Electron Test 28, 243–255 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-011-5266-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-011-5266-z

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