Two-dimensional digital microfluidic system by multilayer printed circuit board

We report a true 2D (i.e., direct physical access to each electrode in a M/spl times/N grid) electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) chip for the first time by adopting a multilayer printed circuit board (PCB) as the substrate. Incorporating mature PCB technology and introducing land grid array (LGA) sockets in the packaging, this new fabrication scheme is expected to make reconfigurable digital microfluidics practical in terms of chip cost (i.e., low enough to be disposable) and system flexibility (i.e., scalable).