Self-Stabilization in Amorphous Silicon Circuits

Thin-film transistors (TFTs) based on disordered semiconductors such as amorphous hydrogenated silicon (a-Si:H) experience a threshold voltage (VT) shift with time in the presence of a gate bias. The VT shift needs to be compensated for circuit applications. We study an interesting property of self-compensation in fundamental analog TFT circuits with one a part of the circuit compensating for the effects of VT shift in the other and vice versa.      

AMOLED电流镜像像素电路的稳定性分析

a—Si：HTFT在长时间施加直流栅偏压下将导致晶体管闽值电压漂移,造成OLED的发光亮度下降,影响其使用寿命。而多管的像素电路设计可以补偿或消除阂值电压的漂移。本文分析了电流控制电流镜像像素电路的工作原理。结合a—Si：HTFT阈值漂移模型仿真了电路在长时间工作下阈值漂移对驱动电流稳定性的影响,并提出了相应的解决办法。研究结果表明合理的像素电路设计可以有效改善驱动电流的稳定性。     

Single-Technology-Based Statistical Calibration for High-Performance Active-Matrix Organic LED Displays

Active-matrix organic light-emitting-diode (AMOLED) displays based on amorphous hydrogenated silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film transistors (TFTs) are the state of the art in display technology, owing to the feasilibility of low-cost fabrication and accessability to well-established TFT-LCD fabrication. While the a-Si:H TFT offers excellent matching of device properties over large areas, it suffers from a gate-bias-dependent threshold voltage shift in time, leading to grayscale inaccuracies. In order to counter this problem, many compensation circuits have been designed. The purpose of the compensation circuit is to estimate the threshold voltage shift in driver TFTs and apply a correction so as to maintain a constant brightness. However, all of the compensation circuits designed to date suffer from low spatial and temporal resolution and reliability issues or high cost due to the use of custom-made CMOS technology. In this paper, we focus on building AMOLED display systems solely based on a-Si:H TFT technology along with the use of off-the-shelf CMOS components to lower costs. Furthermore, we achieve high spatial and temporal resolution and high yield with the use of a two-TFT voltage programmed pixel circuit along with a statistical based external calibration circuit.     

Markov model for threshold-voltage shift in amorphous silicon TFTs for variable gate bias

Amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film transistors (TFTs) are widely used in active matrix displays and sensors, in which their operation is typically analog in nature. However, the TFT experiences a V/sub T/ shift with time under gate bias, and the need for a model of the V/sub T/ shift with variable gate bias is imperative for robust circuit design. A model for the V/sub T/ shift under constant and variable gate bias has been presented and agrees with measurement results. The developed model can be easily represented by circuit elements and incorporated into a circuit simulator. As a proof of concept, we use the model to predict the transients of a weighted voltage subtractor circuit.     

a—SiNx：H薄膜对a—Si：H TFT阈值电压的影响

介绍了测定a－Si：HTFT闽值电压的实验方法。重点研究了改变a－SiNx：H薄膜淀积时反应气体NH3／SiH4流速比以及a－SiNx:H膜厚对a－Si：HTFT阈值电压的影响。对实验结果进行了分析。实验结果表明：a－Si:HTFT的阈值电压随a－SiNx：H的膜厚增加而增大；增大X－SiNx：H薄膜淀积时NH3／SiH4气体流速比，可明显减小a-Si:HTFT的阈值电压。     

AMOLED Pixel Circuit With Electronic Compensation of Luminance Degradation

A new voltage-programmed pixel circuit using hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film transistors (TFTs) for active-matrix organic light-emitting diodes (AMOLEDs) is presented. In addition to compensating for the shift in threshold voltage of TFTs, the circuit is capable of compensating for OLED luminance degradation by employing the shift in OLED voltage as a feedback of OLED degradation     

A new a-Si:H thin-film transistor pixel circuit for active-matrix organic light-emitting diodes

We propose a new pixel circuit using hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film transistors (TFTs), composed of three switching and one driving TFT, for active-matrix organic light-emitting diodes (AMOLEDs) with a voltage source method. The circuit simulation results based on the measured threshold voltage shift of a-Si:H TFTs by gate-bias stress indicate that this circuit compensates for the threshold voltage shifts over 10000 h of operation.     

Threshold voltage shift compensated active pixel sensor array for digital X-ray imaging in a-Si technology

A new active pixel sensor for X-ray digital imaging using amorphous silicon thin-film transistors (a-Si TFTs) is proposed. Simulation results show that this new APS structure is fully capable of compensating for variations in threshold voltage (V/sub T/) of a-Si TFTs under prolonged gate voltage stress.     

A novel a-Si:H AMOLED pixel circuit based on short-term stress stability of a-Si:H TFTs

This letter presents a novel pixel circuit for hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) active matrix organic light-emitting diode displays employing the short-term stress stability characteristics of a-Si:H thin film transistors (TFTs). The pixel circuit uses a programming TFT that is under stress during the programming cycle and unstressed during the drive cycle. The threshold voltage shift (V/sub T/-shift) of the TFT under these conditions is negligible. The programming TFT in turn regulates the current of the drive TFT, and the pixel current therefore becomes independent of the threshold voltage of the drive TFT.     

Drain-bias dependence of threshold voltage stability of amorphous silicon TFTs

Amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film transistors (TFTs) used in emerging, nonswitch applications such as analog amplifiers or active loads, often have a bias at the drain terminal in addition to the gate that can alter their threshold voltage (V/sub T/) stability performance. At small gate stress voltages (0/spl les/V/sub ST//spl les/15 V) where the defect state creation instability mechanism is dominant, the presence of a bias at the TFT drain decreases the overall shift in V/sub T/(/spl Delta/V/sub T/) compared to the /spl Delta/V/sub T/ in the absence of a drain bias. The measured shift in V/sub T/ appears to agree with the defect pool model that the /spl Delta/V/sub T/ is proportional to the number of induced carriers in the a-Si:H channel.     

Influence of mechanical bending and temperature on the threshold voltage instability of a-Si:H thin-film transistors under electrical stress

This paper studies the electrical characteristics of hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin-film transistors (a-Si:H TFTs) under flat and bending situations after AC/DC stress at different temperatures. Stress temperature was varied from 77 K to 400 K, and threshold voltage shifts were extracted to analyze degradation mechanisms. It was found that high temperature and mechanical bending played important roles under AC stress, with an enhanced stress effect resulting in a more serious degradation. This study also discusses the dependence between the accumulated sum of bias rising and falling time and the threshold voltage shifts under AC stress.     

Three-TFT image sensor for real-time digital X-ray imaging

A new current-programmed, current-output active TFT image sensor suitable for real-time X-ray imaging (e.g. fluoroscopy) using hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film-transistor (TFT) technology is introduced. The proposed pixel circuit can successfully compensate for characteristic variations such as mobility and threshold voltage shift in a-Si:H TFTs. Simulation and measurement results show that high on-pixel amplification can be accomplished with this pixel circuit.     

Improvement of the reliability of amorphous silicon transistors byconduction-band tail width reduction

We present theoretical and experimental evidence showing that bias induced threshold voltage degradation of a-Si:H transistors is reduced by decreasing the width of the conduction-band tail. We show that transistors which are made using a thick (0.5 μm) a-Si:H layer possess a narrower conduction-band tail compared to transistors made using thin (0.05 μm) a-Si:H layers. We find that bias-induced threshold voltage degradation decreases by a factor of two for thick-layered TFTs compared with conventional, thin-layered TFTs. Finally, we present device design guidelines for improving the reliability of a-Si:H TFTs including several possible device designs for achieving further improvements in the reliability of a-Si:H TFTs     

A novel current-scaling a-Si:H TFTs pixel electrode circuit for AM-OLEDs

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin-film transistor (a-Si:H TFT) pixel electrode circuit with a function of current scaling is proposed for active-matrix organic light-emitting displays (AM-OLEDs). In contrast to the conventional current mirror pixel electrode circuit, in this circuit a high data-to-organic light-emitting device (OLED) current ratio can be achieved, without increasing the a-Si:H TFT size, by using a cascade structure of storage capacitors. Moreover, the proposed circuit can compensate for the variations of TFT threshold voltage. Simulation results, based on a-Si:H TFT and OLED experimental data, showed that a data-to-OLED current ratio larger than 10 and a fast pixel programming time can be accomplished with the proposed circuit.     

Level shifter embedded in drive circuits with amorphous silicon TFTs

A drive circuit embedded with a level shifter was fabricated with conventional a-Si:H thin-film transistor (TFT) process. Two cascaded bootstrapped inverters were fabricated for the level shifter. The proposed level shifter shifts an input signal to a high voltage, for example, from 5 to 30 V. The level shifter embedded driver with a-Si:H TFT operates well for the input 5-V start pulse and clocks, and the 4th output of the driver shows 30.3-V output. The level shifter is stable under operation even though there is a threshold voltage shift of a-Si:H TFT. The stability of the driver was also investigated.     

Gated-four-probe a-Si:H TFT structure: a new technique to measurethe intrinsic performance of a-Si:H TFT

In this letter, a new technique based on gated-four-probe hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film transistor (TFT) structure is proposed. This new technique allows the determination of the intrinsic performance of a-Si:H TFT without any influence from source/drain series resistances. In this method, two probes within a conventional a-Si:H TFT are used to measure the voltage difference within a channel. By correlating this voltage difference with the drain-source current induced by applied gate bias, the a-Si:H TFT intrinsic performance, such as mobility, threshold voltage, and field-effect conductance activation energy, can be accurately determined without any influence from source/drain series resistances     

A new a-Si:H TFT pixel circuit compensating the threshold voltage shift of a-Si:H TFT and OLED for active matrix OLED

We propose a new hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin-film transistor (a-Si:H TFT) pixel circuit for an active matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) employing a voltage programming. The proposed a-Si:H TFT pixel circuit, which consists of five switching TFTs, one driving TFT, and one capacitor, successfully minimizes a decrease of OLED current caused by threshold voltage degradation of a-Si:H TFT and OLED. Our experimental results, based on the bias-temperature stress, exhibit that the output current for OLED is decreased by 7% in the proposed pixel, while it is decreased by 28% in the conventional 2-TFT pixel.     

Electrical Stability of Hexagonal a-Si:H TFTs

In this letter, we study the current-temperature-stress-induced electrical instability of single and multiple hexagonal (HEX) hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film transistors (TFTs) connected in parallel. The influence of the threshold voltage shift of a single HEX TFT on the overall electrical performance of multiple HEX TFTs is discussed. The results indicate that a-Si:H HEX TFTs have an improved electrical stability and a threshold voltage shift linear dependence on a number of connected HEX-TFT units.     

Characterization, modeling, and minimization of transient thresholdvoltage shifts in MOSFETs

MOSFETs subjected to large-signal gate-source voltage pulses on microsecond to millisecond time scales exhibit transient threshold voltage shifts which relax over considerably longer periods of time. This problem is important in high-accuracy analog circuits where it can cause errors at the 12 b level and above. In this paper, transient threshold voltage shifts are characterized with respect to their dependence on stress amplitude and duration, relaxation time, gate bias, substrate bias, drain voltage, temperature, and channel width and length. In contrast to previous studies, threshold voltage shifts are measured at time and voltage scales relevant to analog circuits, and are shown to occur even when the effects of Fowler-Nordheim tunneling, avalanche injection, hot carriers, trap generation, self-heating, mobile ions, and dipolar polarizations are absent. A new model is proposed in which channel charge carriers tunnel to and from near-interface oxide traps by one of three parallel pathways. Transitions may occur elastically, by direct tunneling between the silicon band edges and an oxide trap, or inelastically, by tunneling in conjunction with a thermal transition in the insulator or at the Si-SiO₂ interface. Simulations based on this model show excellent agreement with experimental results. The threshold voltage shifts are also shown to be correlated with 1/f noise, in corroboration of the tunneling model. Techniques for the minimization and modeling of errors in circuits are presented     

非晶硅太阳能电池载流子收集长度的自动测量

提出用光生电流偏压关系拟合非晶硅pin太阳能电池光态I-V特性曲线,测量光生载流子收集长度的模型.用计算机自动测量与分析处理系统采样,采用Marquardt数字计算拟合法对实测I-V值进行拟合验证,实验结果证明该模型拟合结果良好.用不同模型对同组数据进行拟合比较,对各模型拟合误差进行了讨论,本文的模型拟合误差较小,参数自动拟合调整较大,数据重复性、可靠性好,能反映实际使用条件下电池的特性.