Multi-project wafers for flexible thin-film electronics by independent foundries

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Celiker, Hikmet; Dehaene, Wim; Myny, Kris
• 署名单位: KU Leuven; Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre
• 刊物名称: Nature
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-5705
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07306-2
• 发表日期: 2024-05-09
• 页码: 335-+
• 关键词: transistors; tfts

摘要

Flexible and large-area electronics rely on thin-film transistors (TFTs) to make displays(1-3), large-area image sensors(4-6), microprocessors(7-11), wearable healthcare patches(12-15), digital microfluidics(16,17) and more. Although silicon-based complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) chips are manufactured using several dies on a single wafer and the multi-project wafer concept enables the aggregation of various CMOS chip designs within the same die, TFT fabrication is currently lacking a fully verified, universal design approach. This increases the cost and complexity of manufacturing TFT-based flexible electronics, slowing down their integration into more mature applications and limiting the design complexity achievable by foundries. Here we show a stable and high-yield TFT platform for the fabless manufacturing of two mainstream TFT technologies, wafer-based amorphous indium-gallium-zinc oxide and panel-based low-temperature polycrystalline silicon, two key TFT technologies applicable to flexible substrates. We have designed the iconic 6502 microprocessor in both technologies as a use case to demonstrate and expand the multi-project wafer approach. Enabling the foundry model for TFTs, as an analogy of silicon CMOS technologies, can accelerate the growth and development of applications and technologies based on these devices.