EAGER: Microfluidic Design Automation

微流体系统采用发丝大小的通道来分析信用卡大小设备中的流体。微流控已被证明可以提高医学测试、药物发现和化学测试的准确性、速度和成本，但每项新的医学测试都需要定制设计，这使得微流控芯片价格昂贵。3D打印（3DP）具有快速、廉价制造定制设备的潜力。将微流体和3D打印相结合的问题是，每个设计都需要一个对3D打印过程有深入了解的工程师。相比之下，工程师们已经开发出微电子设计工具，可以自动设计芯片。这个探索性研究（EAGER）项目将研究使用微电子设计中应用的原理来生产自动化设计工具，使医疗技术人员能够设计定制的微流体设备，这些设备可以订购并可靠地进行3D打印。最终，定制测试可能会被设计、订购、打印并发送到诊所或医生办公室。微流控装置将成为医疗保健、食品安全、化学测试和生物防御的重要组成部分。设计自动化方法和软件的使用可以极大地提高设计、验证和制造微流体装置的效率。当前的CAD和仿真工具必须针对每种应用进行定制，这使得它们速度缓慢且价格昂贵，并且由于不完美的手动放置和路由，微流控芯片通常需要重新设计。为了克服这些挑战，需要克服几个关键的科学障碍，以利用3D打印微流体的设计自动化。具体来说，需要在设计自动化仿真软件中模拟流体动力学的复杂性，执行3D放置和路由，并自动化3D打印微流体装置的后处理。研究团队将开发一个基于物理的流体动力学框架，用于在Verilog-AMS中编码的SPICE模拟，该框架可以处理流体的复杂性，使用当前的开源EDA工具和多层方法构建3D设计的放置和路由方法，以及去除打印设备中未固化树脂的自动化系统。该方法将通过使用工具来设计、优化、制造和测试DNA分析设备来验证。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Microfluidic systems employ hair-sized channels to analyze fluids in credit card sized devices. Microfluidics has been shown to improve the accuracy, speed, and cost of medical tests, drug discovery, and chemical testing, but every new medical test needs to be custom designed, making microfluidic chips expensive. 3D printing (3DP) has the potential to make custom devices quickly and inexpensively. The problem with combining microfluidics and 3D printing is that an engineer with deep knowledge of the 3DP process is needed to do each design. In contrast, engineers have developed microelectronic design tools that design chips automatically. This EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project will investigate using the principles applied in microelectronic design to produce automated design tools that enable medical technicians to design custom microfluidic devices that can be ordered and reliably 3D printed. Ultimately, custom tests might be designed, ordered, printed, and sent to a clinic or doctor’s office. The microfluidic devices could become a critical part of healthcare, food safety, chemical testing, and biodefense.The use of design automation approaches and software can greatly improve the efficiency of design, validation, and manufacturing of microfluidic devices. Current CAD and simulation tools must be customized for each application, making them slow and expensive, and microfluidic chips often require redesign due to imperfect manual placement and routing. To overcome these challenges, several key scientific barriers need to be overcome to utilize design automation for 3D printed microfluidics. Specifically, there is a need to emulate the complexities of fluid dynamics in design automation simulation software, perform 3D placement and routing, and automate the post-processing of 3D printed microfluidic devices. The research team will develop a physics-based fluid dynamics framework for SPICE simulations coded in Verilog-AMS that handles the complexities of fluids, a placement and routing approach to build 3D designs using current open-source EDA tools with a multilayer approach, and automated systems to remove uncured resin in printed devices. The approach will be validated by using the tools to design, optimize, fabricate, and test DNA analysis devices.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.