Integrated and real-time quantitative analysis using cyberphysical digital-microfluidic biochips

Considerable effort has recently been directed towards the implementation of molecular bioassays on digital-microfluidic biochips. However, today's solutions suffer from the drawback that multiple sample pathways are not supported and on-chip reconfigurable devices are not efficiently exploited. To overcome this problem, we present a spatial-reconfiguration technique that incorporates resource-sharing specifications into the synthesis flow. This technique is combined with cyberphysical integration to develop the first design-automation framework for quantitative gene expression. The proposed framework is based on a real-time resource-allocation algorithm that responds promptly to decisions about the protocol flow received from a firmware layer. Simulation results show that our adaptive framework efficiently utilizes on-chip resources to reduce time-to-result without sacrificing the chip's lifetime.