Reliability-aware synthesis for flow-based microfluidic biochips by dynamic-device mapping

On flow-based biochips, valves that are used to form peristaltic pumps wear out much earlier than valves for transportation since the former are actuated more often, which leads to a reduced lifetime of the chip. In this paper, we introduce a valve-role-changing concept to avoid always using the same valves for peristalsis. Based on this, we generate dynamic devices from a valve-centered architecture to distribute the valve actuation activities evenly and reduce the largest number of valve actuations with even fewer valves. In addition, we propose in situ on-chip storages, which can overlap with other devices, so that less area is needed compared with dedicated storages on traditional chips. Moreover, our method provides good support for assays requiring different volumes and ratios of samples. Experiments show that compared with traditional designs, the largest number of valve actuations can be reduced by 72.97% averagely, while the number of valves is reduced by 10.62%.