Yangtze River Delta G60 laser alliance guide
据悉，比利时鲁汶大学的科研人员报道了独立代工生产用于柔性薄膜电子产品的多项目晶圆的研究。 相关研究成果以“Multi-project wafers for flexible thin-film electronics by independent foundries”为题发表在《Nature》上。
Flexible, large-area electronics rely on thin-film transistors (TFTs) to make displays, large-area image sensors, microprocessors, wearable healthcare patches, digital microfluidics, and more. While silicon-based complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) chips are fabricated using multiple chips on a single wafer, and the multi-project wafer concept enables the integration of various CMOS chip designs into the same wafer, TFT fabrication currently lacks a well-proven universal design approach. This increases the cost and complexity of manufacturing TFT-based flexible electronics, slows their integration with more mature applications, and limits the design complexity that foundries can achieve. In the paper, the researchers demonstrate a stable, high-yield TFT platform for fabless fabrication of two mainstream TFT technologies: wafer-based amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide and panel-based low-temperature polysilicon, two key TFT technologies for flexible substrates. The researchers designed the iconic 6502 microprocessor in both technologies as a use case to demonstrate and scale the multi-project wafer approach. As an analogy for silicon CMOS technology, enabling the TFT foundry model can accelerate the growth and development of applications and technologies based on these devices.
Figure 1: TFT's multi-project wafer approach.
Figure 2: Inverter and ring oscillator characterization.
Figure 3: Schematic diagram of the digital process implemented for IGZO and LTPS technologies.
Figure 4: Flex 6502 chip and characterization analysis.
Scientists have demonstrated the multi-project wafer concept of flexible TFT technology, enabling fabless design companies and research institutes to begin experimenting with these emerging technologies for a variety of applications. Since the late 80s of the 20th century, the concept of multi-project wafers has played an important role in the development of the silicon CMOS chip industry, and silicon chips play an important role in our daily life. Similarly, commercial TFTs, which are currently mainly used in many displays and imagers, can also be applied in various fields, such as the Internet of Things, wearable healthcare, e-skin, smart robots, lab-on-chip, etc. To demonstrate this concept, the iconic 6502 microprocessor was designed using two different flexible thin-film transistor technologies, the 0.8 micron IGZO technology node based on a 200 mm wafer and the 3 micron LTPS technology based on the GEN-3.5 620 mm × 750 mm flat plates.
These results show that transistor technology on flexible substrates can be applied not only to traditional display and imager consumer products, but also to a wider range of applications. The introduction of the multi-project wafer concept for flexible thin-film transistor technology, coupled with the demonstration of two 6502 chip specifications, is expected to pave the way for the research and development of these technologies, ushering in an era of unprecedented and unknown applications.
Paper Links:
Çeliker, H., Dehaene, W. & Myny, K. Multi-project wafers for flexible thin-film electronics by independent foundries. Nature 629, 335–340 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07306-2
Welcome everyone to participate in the activities held by the Yangtze River Delta G60 Laser Alliance:
Application of laser intelligent manufacturing in new energy vehicles:
July 29-31, 2024, Hefei Fengda International Hotel, Anhui
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