Characterization and production planning challenges for commercial scale microfluidic device manufacturing

Abstract

As an emerging industry, microfluidic device manufacturing has little large scale production experience. Many areas, like base materials selection, mass production processes and equipment design, have not been well established. The uncertainties bring both challenges and opportunities. If we are able to anticipate the potential production system related problems proactively, it will greatly help the research and development better realize the concept of design-for-manufacturing and prepare us to accelerate fast once the large scale production takes place. In this thesis project, we began with characterization of polymer based microfluidic manufacturing processes. A probable production flow was constructed for relatively simple devices and extended to represent more complicated and generic systems. The potential challenges in the production planning were discussed and corresponding recommendations were made on process development and equipment designs.