Yield enhancement of digital microfluidics-based biochips using space redundancy and local reconfiguration

As microfluidics-based biochips become more complex, manufacturing yield will have significant influence on production volume and product cost. We propose an interstitial redundancy approach to enhance the yield of biochips that are based on droplet-based microfluidics. In this design method, spare cells are placed in the interstitial sites within the microfluidic array, and they replace neighboring faulty cells via local reconfiguration. The proposed design method is evaluated using a set of concurrent real-life bioassays.