Scheduling of microfluidic operations for reconfigurable two-dimensional electrowetting arrays

We present an architectural design and optimization methodology for performing biochemical reactions using two-dimensional (2-D) electrowetting arrays. We define a set of basic microfluidic operations and leverage electronic design automation principles for system partitioning, resource allocation, and operation scheduling. Fluidic operations are carried out through the electrostatic configuration of a set of grid points. While concurrency is desirable to minimize processing time, the size of the 2-D array limits the number of concurrent operations of any type. Furthermore, functional dependencies between the operations also limit concurrency. We use integer linear programming to minimize the processing time by automatically extracting parallelism from a biochemical assay. As a case study, we apply our optimization method to the polymerase chain reaction, which is an important step in many lab-on-a-chip biochemical applications.