Current lab-on-a-chip (LoC) devices are assay-specific and are custom-built for each single experiment. Performing an experiment requires scientists or engineers to go through the time-consuming process of designing, fabricating, and testing a chip before conducting the actual experiment. This prolonged cycle can take months to complete, increasing effort and cost and reducing productivity. Similarly, minor modifications to an assay protocol re-incur the overheads of the design cycle. In this paper, we develop a multi-purpose, software-programmableLab-on-a-Chip (SPLoC), where the user simply writes or downloads a program for each experiment. We describe the components necessary to realize the SPLoC, which include a high-level programming language, an abstract instruction set, a runtime and control system, and a microfluidic device. We describe two key features of our high-level language compiler, and describe a novel variable-volume variable-ratio mixer. Finally, we demonstrate our SPLoC on four diverse, real-world assays.

中文翻译：

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软件可编程连续流多用途芯片实验室。

当前的芯片实验室 ​​(LoC) 设备是特定于检测的，并且是为每个单一实验定制的。进行实验需要科学家或工程师在进行实际实验之前完成设计、制造和测试芯片的耗时过程。这种延长的周期可能需要数月才能完成，从而增加了工作量和成本并降低了生产力。类似地，对化验协议的微小修改会再次产生设计周期的开销。在本文中，我们开发了一种多用途、软件可编程的芯片实验室 ​​(SPLoC)，用户只需为每个实验编写或下载程序。我们描述了实现 SPLoC 所需的组件，包括高级编程语言、抽象指令集、运行时和控制系统以及微流体设备。我们描述了我们的高级语言编译器的两个关键特性，并描述了一种新颖的可变体积可变比率混合器。最后，我们在四种不同的真实世界检测中展示了我们的 SPLoC。