Novel designs of digital detection analyzer for intelligent detection and analysis in digital microfluidic biochips

A second generation lab-on-chip device termed as digital microfluidic biochip is developed as a time-multiplexed reconfigurable device capable of executing multiple bioassay protocols simultaneously on a single 2D planar array. They combine biology with electronics and integrate various bioassay operations namely sample preparation, analysis, separation and detection. Optical detection, processing and analysis are considered to be of major significance as these may influence the decisions on diagnosis, detection and testing. In this paper we initially propose two separate circuit designs of digital detection analyzer to be coupled with a biochip for execution of prescheduled bioassay protocols. The two types of analyzers enable automated detailed analysis of the optical detection results based on the data acquired at the detection site through successful Biochip operation for a) homogeneous droplet samples and b) heterogeneous droplet samples. A third circuit that integrates the previous two designs for dual mode operation is also proposed. Synthesis and simulation of all the three proposed designs are carried out using pre-characterized reference data for measurement of different parameters of human blood samples and the corresponding final detection results are displayed and verified successfully.