This book provides a comprehensive overview of flow-based, microfluidic VLSI. The authors describe and solve in a comprehensive and holistic manner practical challenges such as control synthesis, wash optimization, design for testability, and diagnosis of modern flow-based microfluidic biochips. They introduce practical solutions, based on rigorous optimization and formal models. The technical contributions presented in this book will not only shorten the product development cycle, but also accelerate the adoption and further development of modern flow-based microfluidic biochips, by facilitating the full exploitation of design complexities that are possible with current fabrication techniques.

This book presents the state-of-the-art techniques for the modeling, simulation, testing, compilation and physical synthesis of mVLSI biochips. The authors describe a top-down modeling and synthesis methodology for the mVLSI biochips, inspired by microelectronics VLSI methodologies. They introduce a modeling framework for the components and the biochip architecture, and a high-level microfluidic protocol language. Coverage includes a topology graph-based model for the biochip architecture, and a sequencing graph to model for biochemical application, showing how the application model can be obtained from the protocol language. The techniques described facilitate programmability and automation, enabling developers in the emerging, large biochip market.

This book describes a comprehensive framework for hardware/software co-design, optimization, and use of robust, low-cost, and cyberphysical digital microfluidic systems. Readers with a background in electronic design automation will find this book to be a valuable reference for leveraging conventional VLSI CAD techniques for emerging technologies, e.g., biochips or bioMEMS. Readers from the circuit/system design community will benefit from methods presented to extend design and testing techniques from microelectronics to mixed-technology microsystems. For readers from the microfluidics domain, this book presents a new design and development strategy for cyberphysical microfluidics-based biochips suitable for large-scale bioassay applications. • Takes a transformative, “cyberphysical” approach towards achieving closed-loop and sensor feedback-driven biochip operation under program control; • Presents a “physically-aware” system reconfiguration technique that uses sensor data at intermediate checkpoints to dynamically reconfigure biochips; • Enables readers to simplify the structure of biochips, while facilitating the “general-purpose” use of digital microfluidic biochips for a wider range of applications.

A microfluidic biochip is an engineered fluidic device that controls the flow of analytes, thereby enabling a variety of useful applications. According to recent studies, the fields that are best set to benefit from the microfluidics technology, also known as lab-on-chip technology, include forensic identification, clinical chemistry, point-of-care (PoC) diagnostics, and drug discovery. The growth in such fields has significantly amplified the impact of microfluidics technology, whose market value is forecast to grow from $4 billion in 2017 to $13.2 billion by 2023. The rapid evolution of lab-on-chip technologies opens up opportunities for new biological or chemical science areas that can be directly facilitated by sensor-based microfluidics control. For example, the digital microfluidics-based ePlex system from GenMarkDx enables automated disease diagnosis and can bring syndromic testing near patients everywhere. However, as the applications of molecular biology grow, the adoption of microfluidics in many applications has not grown at the same pace, despite the concerted effort of microfluidic systems engineers. Recent studies suggest that state-of-the-art design techniques for microfluidics have two major drawbacks that need to be addressed appropriately: (1) current lab-on-chip systems were only optimized as auxiliary components and are only suitable for sample-limited analyses; therefore, their capabilities may not cope with the requirements of contemporary molecular biology applications; (2) the integrity of these automated lab-on-chip systems and their biochemical operations are still an open question since no protection schemes were developed against adversarial contamination or result-manipulation attacks. Optimization of Trustworthy Biomolecular Quantitative Analysis Using Cyber-Physical Microfluidic Platforms provides solutions to these challenges by introducing a new design flow based on the realistic modeling of contemporary molecular biology protocols. It also presents a microfluidic security flow that provides a high-level of confidence in the integrity of such protocols. In summary, this book creates a new research field as it bridges the technical skills gap between microfluidic systems and molecular biology protocols but it is viewed from the perspective of an electronic/systems engineer.

Design Automation Methods and Tools for Microfluidics-Based Biochips deals with all aspects of design automation for microfluidics-based biochips. Experts have contributed chapters on many aspects of biochip design automation. Topics covered include: device modeling; adaptation of bioassays for on-chip implementations; numerical methods and simulation tools; architectural synthesis, scheduling and binding of assay operations; physical design and module placement; fault modeling and testing; and reconfiguration methods.

Microfluidics-based biochips combine electronics with biochemistry, providing access to new application areas in a wide variety of fields. Continued technological innovations are essential to assuring the future role of these chips in functional diversification in biotech, pharmaceuticals, and other industries.Revolutionary guidance on design, opti