Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
a
b
Assay Sequencing Graph
Assay Sequencing Graph
Scheduling
Device Count Aware
Synchronous Scheduling
Device Placement
Droplet Routing
Dedicated Chip Layout
Design Gap
Electrode Classification,
Guided Pin Assignment,
and Wiring
Pin Assignment
Wiring
Chip Realization
Chip Realization
(a)
(b)
Conventional design flow
Co-design methodology
Design input
Design ouput
Fig. 1.17
Comparison between the conventional design flow and the chip-level biochip design
flow [
55
]
The concepts of “synchronous reaction” and “device count-aware scheduling”
are introduced in the synthesis stage. The reusability of modules can be improved,
and the number of control pins required is minimized [
55
]. Next, the modules
that correspond to these scheduled operations are placed on the biochip. Based
on the device count-aware scheduling algorithm, the number of modules and the
shapes of the modules are calculated. The placement of modules and the assignment
of resources are determined to minimize the distances that the droplets must be
transported. Electrodes are classified into three categories, i.e., bus, branch, and
device electrodes. The pin-assignment methods and wire-routing strategies for these
three categories are different. For example, the same types of devices that are used
to implement synchronous operations share the same group of control pins. In
this way, co-optimization for the synthesis result of the bioassay, pin-assignment
configuration of the biochip, and metal wire-routing solution is achieved.
