New Molecular Thin Film Transistors Operate with Reduced Voltages - New Technology

Organic electronics targets low performance and cost-sensitive applications. One of the most critical problems of the traditional organic Thin-film Transistors (TFTs) is the high operating voltage, which often exceeds 20V. In order to reduce the operating voltage and thereby the power consumption in organic TFT ICs, new ultra-thin gate dielectrics are necessary.

Infineon developed a new molecular TFT based on a high-mobility organic semiconductor (pentacene) and an ultra-thin (2.5nm), molecular self-assembling-monolayer (SAM) gate dielectric. With this breakthrough in the area of gate dielectrics for organic transistors, transistors operating down to 1V were realized exhibiting a subthreshold swing as low as 100 mV/decade. For a transistor with a channel length of 5µm a transconductance of 0.01µS/µm was measured - the highest transconductance reported for an organic semiconductor device up to today.

Posted 10^th December 2003