Process design kit and design automation for flexible hybrid electronics

Abstract

High‐performance and low‐cost flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) are desirable for applications such as Internet of Things (IoT), wearable electronics, and flexible displays. However, design toolkit, design methodology, and compact models that play an essential role in designing complex FHE circuits and systems are still missing today. To fill this gap, here we report (a) the process design kit (PDK) dedicated to electronic design automation for FHE circuits and systems and (b) solution process–proven intellectual property (IP) blocks, which serves as a stepping stone for designing large‐scale flexible thin‐film transistor (TFT) circuits. The proposed FHE‐PDK is made compatible with modern electronics design tools for users to design, simulate, and verify physical design of flexible hybrid systems.

Active matrix-based pressure sensor system with a 4 × 16 printed decoder designed with a flexible hybrid organic process design kit

“…Furthermore, the function F is defined as: where x is the variable representing V GS or V GD . Following the approach in [27], most of the parameters are extracted through the H-integral function (figure 3):…”

“…This issue can be mitigated by integrating the material and parasitic information for each layer in the PDK. Also, within printed electronics, circuits based on only a monotype transistor is well known [27][28][29]. To implement logic gates, various topologies are available to compensate for the complementary behaviour.…”

“…To further support the designer in complex circuit design, a reusable standard cell library based on the most optimal topology for the technology can further save time and efforts. The standard cell library is not available in case of printed electronics based PDK till yet [21][22][23][24][25]27]. Even though progress has been made with the available PDKs, improvements such as accurate mathematical model containing capacitance and variation information, parasitic information, standard cell blocks etc.…”

“…Furthermore, the model is integrated together with layout information, design rules, and film properties into a PDK, which is named as FH-OPDK, here. The FH-OPDK is then FH_OPDK OPDK, University of Minnesota [21] Process design kit for flexible hybrid electronic [27] Fully-additive printed electronics [24] OPDK, Nguyen et al [25] Pcell D flip-flop, shift register, amplifier [27] 4-bit DAC [24] 6-bit organic fully differential SAR ADC [25] integrated in Cadence as a part of the front-to-end design flow. The front-to-end design flow is customized specially for the hybrid printed technology.…”

Bioinspired Interface-Guided Conformal Janus Membranes with Enhanced Adhesion for Flexible Multifunctional Electronics

“…Wearable electronics have drawn considerable interest due to their portable, flexible, and soft features, targeted for mobile health monitoring, − human–machine communication, − and soft robotics. − Specifically, stretchable electronics and related devices provide excellent compatibility and adaptability to the human body with motion-induced deformation, demonstrating significant potential in stretchable electrodes, mechanical sensors, wearable storage devices, and so forth. , In recent years, significant efforts have been dedicated to achieving high-performance electronic devices via the exploitation of diverse functional materials and alternative optimization of the device structure. − A typical example of artificial intelligent skin was designed to realize a multifunctional optoelectronic device to distinguish the stress direction and realize the color display for self-adaptive camouflage . However, targeted surfaces are commonly characteristic of topological morphologies, , dynamical deformations, , and diverse wettability. − Therefore, to realize precise, noise-free, and continuous signal monitoring, the stable interface between flexible electronic devices and targeted substrates has played a vital role, especially in the field of mechanical sensing.…”