Testing of Low-cost Digital Microfluidic Biochips with Non-Regular Array Layouts

Digital microfluidic biochips with non-regular arrays are of interest for clinical diagnostic applications in a cost-sensitive market segment. Previous techniques for biochip testing are limited to regular microfluidic arrays. We present an automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) method for non-regular digital microfluidic chips. The ATPG method can generate test patterns to detect catastrophic defects in non-regular arrays where the full reconfigurability of the digital microfluidic platform is not utilized. It automates test-stimulus design and test-resource selection, in order to minimize the test application time. We also present an integer linear programming model for the compaction of test patterns, while maintaining the desired fault coverage. We utilize two fabricated biochips with non-regular microfluidic arrays to evaluate the proposed ATPG method.