Printable Low Power Organic Transistor Technology for Customizable Hybrid Integration Towards Internet of Everything

Abstract

A highly customizable hybrid sensor system, composed of a silicon integrated circuit (IC) chip and an organic field effect transistor (OFET) transducer, is proposed for Internet of Everything (IoE). In such a system, the silicon IC chip performs high performance and complex signal processing, and the OFET transducer provides flexible or conformable large area coverage and more friendly interfaces to integrate different sensing materials. A low trap-state density OFET (LTDOFET) technology is developed for such a hybrid system, owning features of low-cost solution printing processes, low operation voltage and excellent operational stability. This technology has been implemented with various materials and processes, indicating its generality. Several sensor applications built based on this device technology are also reviewed, proving the LTDOFET technology would be promising for highly customizable sensor systems towards the IoE era.

Technology Roadmap for Flexible Sensors

“…Simple circuits near sensors for signal pre-processing to standardize the data format enable modular sensing integration, without the need for changing the central control unit during customization ( e.g. , microcontrollers). , Additionally, such circuits can be fabricated via low-cost solution processes together with sensors, offering greater convenience during prototyping.…”

3‐3: Invited Paper: Development of Organic TFT Technology for Active‐Matrix Display Backplane

“…By depositing a blended solution of small molecule OSC and insulating polymer binder onto a low-k polymer GI surface, the OSC crystallization can be well controlled to obtain a low trap density channel [9]. Based on this approach, low voltage OTFTs are able to be fabricated using popular low-k polymer dielectrics with a thick layer suitable to be deposited with solution coating processes, so that the material requirement and process complexity are both lessened [10]. For an example, low voltage OTFTs with a subthreshold swing of about 250 mV/dec can be fabricated using a one-micrometer thick SU8 GI layer [11].…”

Advances in flexible organic field-effect transistors and their applications for flexible electronics

“…The third one is to develop efficient processing techniques. Compared with traditional spin-coating and vacuum-thermal evaporation, high-throughput processing approaches, such as doctor-blade coating, slot die coating, screening, and gravure printing, might be better to enable large-area manufacturing of FOFET integrated circuits [22][23][24][25] . Meanwhile, the thermal lamination-transfer technique is typically employed to prepare intrinsically stretchable organic transistors and arrays, which is conducive to avoid the solvent damage and metal penetration [26][27][28] .…”