Microfluidic Substrate Electrostatic Breakdown Prevention
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Uncontrollable electrostatic neutralization during the use or manufacturing of digital microfluidic chips leads to functional failures, reduced yield, increased manufacturing costs, and decreased reliability, limiting their application in fields like physics, chemistry, and medicine.
Innovation Solution
A microfluidic substrate with a conductive layer featuring electrode and trace patterns spaced at specific minimum distances to prevent electrostatic breakdown, including a charge neutralization region and outer-charge shielding to mitigate static charges, thereby protecting critical components and improving chip reliability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If the trace pattern is placed close to the electrode pattern to reduce spacing, then the device complexity is reduced and manufacturing is easier, but electrostatic breakdown occurs causing functional failure
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies different spacing requirements to different portions of the electrode pattern based on their geometric characteristics. Arc portions require 4 micrometer spacing, sharp portions require 25 micrometer spacing, and linear portions require 20 micrometer spacing. This localized quality approach optimizes the balance between manufacturing ease and electrostatic protection by tailoring the spacing to the specific geometric features of each electrode region.
2Reliability
If the spacing between trace pattern and electrode pattern is increased to prevent electrostatic breakdown, then chip reliability is improved, but the device complexity increases and manufacturing becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements variable spacing requirements based on the local geometric characteristics of the electrode pattern. Different portions of the electrode (arc, sharp, linear) have different minimum spacing requirements to trace patterns. This approach prevents electrostatic breakdown in critical areas while maintaining tighter spacing in less critical areas, thereby reducing overall device complexity compared to a uniform large-spacing design.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided are a microfluidic substrate, a microfluidic chip, and an assay device. The microfluidic substrate includes: a base substrate; a conductive layer arranged on the base substrate, patterns of the conductive layer includes one or more electrode patterns and one or more trace patterns, an orthogonal projection of at least a portion of each trace pattern onto the base substrate is on one side of an orthogonal projection of a corresponding electrode pattern onto the base substrate with a minimum spacing of greater than or equal to 4 micrometers from an outer contour of the electrode pattern.