System Support for Generally Programmable Digital Microfluidic Biochip Devices

This project has introduced a programming language, compiler, and runtime environment that enables software to control a “cyber-physical” microfluidic device in which integrated sensors and video monitoring equipment form a closed feedback loop (a). The technical contributions of the project include the design and implementation of the language, and a detailed description of the algorithms built into the compiler to enable fast decision-making in real-time in response to sensory feedback (b). In addition to compilation speed, an important algorithmic contribution is a technique to rapidly assign and dispatch operations to on-chip resources (c) while ensuring deadlock-free routing. This project has also applied these same principles to pin-constrained electrowetting devices, which sacrifice some flexibility to reduce the cost of PCB design (d). Current and ongoing work focuses on the design and implementation algorithms for fault tolerance and device reconfiguration, and the specification of new and innovative feedback-driven biological assays using our programming language.