Optimization algorithms for the design of digital microfluidic biochips: A survey

Digital microfluidic biochip revolutionizes the medical diagnosis process rendering multiple tasks executed on a single chip. Incorporation of multiple functionality makes the design process complex and costly for digital microfluidic biochip. Physical simulation for the device components in a biochip is essential in todays manufacturing industry. In this paradigm, design automation and development of computer-aided-design tool that can perform physical level simulation and testing becomes crucial for a successful biochip design. This paper presents a comprehensive survey on design automation for biochip. Initially, a brief description on popular optimization techniques and some heuristic algorithms to solve various optimization problems is presented, followed by a review on biochip design automation works. Generally, architectural and geometry level synthesis for biochip design is performed using optimization techniques. Hence, some recent works on bioassay analysis, resource binding, and scheduling in geometry level are discussed. Finally the survey concludes with some possible future research directions. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.