A digital microfluidic chip by electrostatic manipulation was designed and fabricated for a micro total analysis system. The principle of the electrostatic manipulation was proposed and the fabrication processes and experimental platform were demonstrated. For the chip,the silicon was taken as a substrate,a silicon oxide film as the insulating layer,a TiW/Au film as the electrode array, a Si3N4 film as the dielectric layer, and the fluorocarbon polymer as the hydrophobic layer. With an open structure instead of complex sandwich structure, the chip just needed a coplanar controlling electrode with one layer, so the process was simplified greatly. As the electrode array was embeded in the SiO2,the electric leakage from poor step coverage and dielectric breakdown at the margin were prevented.Furthermore, with thin dielectric layer and fine hydrophobic layer, the manipulating voltage was reduced greatly. Experiments show that,by controlling the sequence of voltage to the electrode array, the droplet can be transported smoothly in the two-dimension planes with a programmable manner at a low voltage of 20 V, and the maximum speed has reached 96 mm/s. The digital microfluidic chip can be used in a Lab-on-chip due to its simple structure and IC compatible fabrication processes.