Next Chips: Organic Transistors and Memories and the Applications They Will Enable
NanoMarkets
November 2007
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The Second Coming of TFTs
NanoMarkets
There is nothing especially new about the thin-film transistor (TFT). It was invented by O. Heil in 1935, although commercialization work didn’t begin until the 1960s at RCA Labs. Back then, TFTs competed for a brief period of time with what was to become the silicon semiconductor industry, but the invention of the MOSFET put pay to any grandiose ambitions that TFT manufacturers might have had in this regard. Instead, these manufacturers turned to a less ambitious goal; applications in LCD and electroluminescent displays. By the late 1980s silicon TFTs had become widely used in LCD displays.
In the 21st Century, it suddenly seems that TFTs will have once again a broad role to play in electronics. Some observers (including NanoMarkets) now believe that thin film, organic and printed (TOP) electronics will grow into a very substantial industry over the coming decades. There are many reasons for believing this, but the main argument is essentially that a new kind of physical layer—capable of supporting electronics over a large area and on many kinds of substrates—will be needed to support the next wave of computing. TFTs will play a crucial role in that layer and new ways of producing them—printing especially—will help to lower their cost.
This next wave has various parts to it. At its simplest, low-cost TFTs could help bring existing functionality to new - and more cost sensitive -- markets. For example, low-cost TFTs could help bring higher resolution displays to handheld/cell phone markets via a new generation of active matrix LCD and OLED displays. Roll-up displays based on flexible TFT arrays would enable handheld users to utilize larger displays. Low-cost TFTs would enable the RFID concept to be extended from palettes to individual items and for new electronic capabilities to be provided in games, smartcards, and other disposables. Longer term TFTs would become a key component in making “pervasive computing;” a trend that the computer, consumer electronics and semiconductor industries are doing much to promote.
For this type of computing to evolve on the back of a TOP electronics physical layer, the TFT concept will have to be extended both in terms of device design and in terms of materials. At the present time, the most likely materials platform for this type of device would seem to be organic materials.
Organic Electronics and TFTs
Like TFTs, organic electronics is older than it looks; as far as the basic science goes it is a child of the 1960s. It also shares other things in common with TFT technology in that until very recently, its commercialization was confined to the display industry; organic LED (OLED) display sales are trending up to becoming a $1.0 billion market in the next few years. However, just as TFTs are breaking out of the markets to which they have previously been confined, so is organic electronics. OLED displays are no longer just for MP3 players and cell phone sub-displays; they have a future in cell phone main displays as well. More importantly in the context of this report, organic semiconductors now seem as if they are the obvious choice for the TFT products and memories that - as described above - will be required by the next wave of computing.
NanoMarkets
There is nothing especially new about the thin-film transistor (TFT). It was invented by O. Heil in 1935, although commercialization work didn’t begin until the 1960s at RCA Labs. Back then, TFTs competed for a brief period of time with what was to become the silicon semiconductor industry, but the invention of the MOSFET put pay to any grandiose ambitions that TFT manufacturers might have had in this regard. Instead, these manufacturers turned to a less ambitious goal; applications in LCD and electroluminescent displays. By the late 1980s silicon TFTs had become widely used in LCD displays.
In the 21st Century, it suddenly seems that TFTs will have once again a broad role to play in electronics. Some observers (including NanoMarkets) now believe that thin film, organic and printed (TOP) electronics will grow into a very substantial industry over the coming decades. There are many reasons for believing this, but the main argument is essentially that a new kind of physical layer—capable of supporting electronics over a large area and on many kinds of substrates—will be needed to support the next wave of computing. TFTs will play a crucial role in that layer and new ways of producing them—printing especially—will help to lower their cost.
This next wave has various parts to it. At its simplest, low-cost TFTs could help bring existing functionality to new - and more cost sensitive -- markets. For example, low-cost TFTs could help bring higher resolution displays to handheld/cell phone markets via a new generation of active matrix LCD and OLED displays. Roll-up displays based on flexible TFT arrays would enable handheld users to utilize larger displays. Low-cost TFTs would enable the RFID concept to be extended from palettes to individual items and for new electronic capabilities to be provided in games, smartcards, and other disposables. Longer term TFTs would become a key component in making “pervasive computing;” a trend that the computer, consumer electronics and semiconductor industries are doing much to promote.
For this type of computing to evolve on the back of a TOP electronics physical layer, the TFT concept will have to be extended both in terms of device design and in terms of materials. At the present time, the most likely materials platform for this type of device would seem to be organic materials.
Organic Electronics and TFTs
Like TFTs, organic electronics is older than it looks; as far as the basic science goes it is a child of the 1960s. It also shares other things in common with TFT technology in that until very recently, its commercialization was confined to the display industry; organic LED (OLED) display sales are trending up to becoming a $1.0 billion market in the next few years. However, just as TFTs are breaking out of the markets to which they have previously been confined, so is organic electronics. OLED displays are no longer just for MP3 players and cell phone sub-displays; they have a future in cell phone main displays as well. More importantly in the context of this report, organic semiconductors now seem as if they are the obvious choice for the TFT products and memories that - as described above - will be required by the next wave of computing.
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