Testing of Low-Cost Digital Microfluidic Biochips with Non-regular Array Layouts

Digital micro fluidic 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 micro fluidic arrays. We present an automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) method for non-regular digital micro fluidic chips. The ATPG method can generate test patterns to detect catastrophic defects in non-regular arrays where the full reconfigurability of the digital micro fluidic 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 a fabricated biochip with non-regular micro fluidic arrays to evaluate the proposed ATPG method.