Problem formulation for Digital Microfluidic Biochips using multiple frequencies

Most of the existing work on synthesis and design of digital microfluidic biochips address the problem assuming that the different fluidic operations (transportation, mixing etc) are done using a single droplet actuation frequency. Yan Luo et al introduced the concept of uncertainty of completion time and use of multiple frequencies in a single biochip. Use of multiple frequencies in a single biochip can enhance the performance and throughput of the biochip. For example, if an operation takes a large amount of time at a particular frequency, executing the operation at a higher frequency reduce the time taken by the operation, thus reducing the completion time. But to utilize multiple frequencies properly, a scheduling strategy considering multiple frequencies has to be devised where completion time uncertainties has to be taken into account. Given : A set of fluidic operations O1, O2....On and their dependencies. Time requirements of different operations t1, t2...tn A set of frequencies to be used f1, f2...fn Given the above information, a scheduling strategy need to be devised so that the completion time and droplet stall can be minimized. Droplet stall creates obstacle to routing other droplets, so minimization of droplet stall time helps in routing. In minimization of the completion time, it is assumed that the fluidic operations will take same number of clock cycles independent of the frequency of operation. Constraint : Using high frequency for a long time leads to electrode degradation(Yan Luo et al ). So, all the operations cannot be assigned the highest frequency. So, the problem becomes : Find a mapping of fluidic operations O1, O2....On to frequencies f1, f2...fn

satisfying their dependencies and the electrode degradation constraint so that the completion time and droplet stall time can be minimized. It can be assumed that using the highest frequency greater than a fixed number of times leads to electrode degradation.