The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.

The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.

Date of Patent:
Jul. 25, 2017

Filed:

Nov. 16, 2012
Applicant:

California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA (US);

Inventors:

Sebastian J. Maerkl, Palo Alto, CA (US);

Todd A. Thorsen, Pasadena, CA (US);

Xiaoyan Bao, Pasadena, CA (US);

Stephen R. Quake, Stanford, CA (US);

Vincent Studer, Paris, FR;

Assignee:
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
B81B 3/00 (2006.01); B81B 7/00 (2006.01); B01L 3/00 (2006.01); C12Q 1/28 (2006.01); B81C 1/00 (2006.01); F15C 5/00 (2006.01); F16K 99/00 (2006.01);
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
C12Q 1/28 (2013.01); B01L 3/502738 (2013.01); B81C 1/00119 (2013.01); F15C 5/00 (2013.01); F16K 99/0001 (2013.01); F16K 99/0015 (2013.01); F16K 99/0059 (2013.01); B01L 3/5025 (2013.01); B01L 3/50273 (2013.01); B01L 2300/0861 (2013.01); B01L 2300/0887 (2013.01); B01L 2400/0481 (2013.01); B01L 2400/0655 (2013.01); B81B 2201/0214 (2013.01); B81B 2201/054 (2013.01); B81B 2201/07 (2013.01); F16K 2099/008 (2013.01); F16K 2099/0074 (2013.01); F16K 2099/0076 (2013.01); F16K 2099/0078 (2013.01); F16K 2099/0084 (2013.01); F16K 2099/0094 (2013.01); Y10T 137/0318 (2015.04); Y10T 137/0329 (2015.04); Y10T 137/2224 (2015.04); Y10T 137/85938 (2015.04); Y10T 137/87249 (2015.04);
Abstract

High-density microfluidic chips contain plumbing networks with thousands of micromechanical valves and hundreds of individually addressable chambers. These fluidic devices are analogous to electronic integrated circuits fabricated using large scale integration (LSI). A component of these networks is the fluidic multiplexor, which is a combinatorial array of binary valve patterns that exponentially increases the processing power of a network by allowing complex fluid manipulations with a minimal number of inputs. These integrated microfluidic networks can be used to construct a variety of highly complex microfluidic devices, for example the microfluidic analog of a comparator array, and a microfluidic memory storage device resembling electronic random access memories.


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