Logic operations in fluidics as foundation for embedded biohybrid computation

Abstract

Realization of generic logic gates and circuits forms the basis of modern computational platforms, which have brought visible changes in everyone's life. As the miniaturization of solid-state logic systems approach fundamental limits, designing digital logic in fluidics has emerged as a new paradigm to go beyond current architectures and exploit the computational efficiency of soft biological systems. This work reviews emerging fluidic approaches and their implementation as “fluidic logic gates” and circuits. Such platforms are categorized into passive and active fluidic logic based on design-of-integration, operational principles, and application. As the use of such fluidic logic for real computation depends on their large-scale integration, we evaluated miniaturization strategies and associated challenges. Furthermore, we propose integration of such fluidic logics with complementary metal oxide semiconductor-compatible ion-sensitive field-effect transistors, serving as a potential bridge between electronics and fluidics to allow integration of different computational paradigms in the upcoming era of computational convergence.