Figure 6: Comparison of the synergistic analogue-digital assay and current state-of-art digital methods: single-volume assay and multi-volume (Rational dPCR) assay.

(A) The geometrical sequence of volumes/dilutions of compartments described in the synergistic design provides constant information gain in a wide dynamic range, therefore every synergistic assay offers the constant precision of the assessment. (B) The performance of the 100-compartment assays. Classic digital assay (black point) offers only one value of precision and dynamic range for a given number of compartments and cannot be tuned. On the other hand, the multi-volume (Rational dPCR; blue line) design allows to ‘trade’ the precision of the assessment for the dynamic range and therefore is more flexible. Synergistic design (red line) offers the same flexibility, but thanks to analogue readout, provides a better precision of the assessment. (C) Another advantage of multivolume designs is lower technical requirements in comparison to classic digital assays. In classic digital methods (black line), the number of compartments required for the assessment is directly proportional to the dynamic range, while in digital multivolume (Rational dPCR; blue line) and synergistic (red line) designs this number is proportional to the logarithm of the dynamic range (therefore, it is lowered by orders of magnitude).