TY - GEN
T1 - Toward Secure Digital Microfluidic Biochips
T2 - 21st IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems, BioCAS 2025
AU - Baban, Navajit Singh
AU - Roy, Prithwish Basu
AU - John, Pauline
AU - Soundararajan, Rajendran
AU - Zam, Azhar
AU - Bhattacharjee, Sukanta
AU - Song, Yong Ak
AU - Chakrabarty, Krishnendu
AU - Karri, Ramesh
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 IEEE.
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - Digital microfluidic biochips (DMFBs) integrate micro-fabricated electrode arrays with control software to manipulate droplets in the nanoliter to sub-microliter range for point-of-care diagnostics and biochemical assays. However, their tight hardware-software co-design is vulnerable to stealthy attacks-nanometer-scale tampering of electrode or dielectric thickness, plasma-induced erosion of hydrophobic coatings, and firmware-hidden high-voltage pulses causing dielectric breakdown. We present a layered defense using a spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) system for non-destructive, micron-resolution depth scans that detect structural anomalies via interface-peak metrics and light backscattering attenuation profiles, alongside a lightweight hash-based attestation protocol to guarantee firmware integrity. Experiments applying OCT to a commercial DMFB and characterizing PDMS dielectrics across 10:1-50:1 curing ratios validated robust detection of microstructural anomalies and material deviations, while hash-based attestation secured firmware integrity-together enabling comprehensive, inline quality control for tamper-resilient DMFBs.
AB - Digital microfluidic biochips (DMFBs) integrate micro-fabricated electrode arrays with control software to manipulate droplets in the nanoliter to sub-microliter range for point-of-care diagnostics and biochemical assays. However, their tight hardware-software co-design is vulnerable to stealthy attacks-nanometer-scale tampering of electrode or dielectric thickness, plasma-induced erosion of hydrophobic coatings, and firmware-hidden high-voltage pulses causing dielectric breakdown. We present a layered defense using a spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) system for non-destructive, micron-resolution depth scans that detect structural anomalies via interface-peak metrics and light backscattering attenuation profiles, alongside a lightweight hash-based attestation protocol to guarantee firmware integrity. Experiments applying OCT to a commercial DMFB and characterizing PDMS dielectrics across 10:1-50:1 curing ratios validated robust detection of microstructural anomalies and material deviations, while hash-based attestation secured firmware integrity-together enabling comprehensive, inline quality control for tamper-resilient DMFBs.
KW - cyber-physical security
KW - Digital microfluidic biochips
KW - hash-based attestation
KW - optical coherence tomography
KW - PDMS curing ratio
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105033214696
U2 - 10.1109/BioCAS67066.2025.00104
DO - 10.1109/BioCAS67066.2025.00104
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:105033214696
T3 - Proceedings - 21st IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems, BioCAS 2025
SP - 457
EP - 461
BT - Proceedings - 21st IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems, BioCAS 2025
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Y2 - 16 October 2025 through 18 October 2025
ER -