FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS

SEMINAR REPORT

SUBMITTED BY

ARJUN A (13402024)

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

SREE CHITRA THIRUNAL COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

October 2016

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION

SREE CHITRA THIRUNAL COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - 695 018

This is to certify that the Seminar report titled FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS is a bona
fide record of the seminar conducted by ARJUN A, under our guidance and supervision
towards partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Bachelor of Technology
Degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the University of Kerala
during the year 2016.

Mr. Kumar G S
Assistant Professor
Dept. of ECE, SCTCE
SEMINAR GUIDE

Mr. Nelwin Raj

Assistant Professor
Dept. of ECE, SCTCE
SEMINAR COORDINATOR

Mrs. Subha V
Assistant Professor
Dept. of ECE, SCTCE
SEMINAR COORDINATOR

Dr. Sheeja M K
Head of the Dept. of ECE
SCTCE
2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the head of the institution Dr. Jayasudha D S for
providing me with the opportunity to complete this seminar. I would also like to thank Dr.
Sheeja M K, Head of the department of ECE for her valuable remarks for presenting this seminar
successfully. Also I would like to express my boundless gratitude to my staff advisor and
seminar coordinator Prof. Nelwin Raj and my guide Prof. Kumar G S for their valuable
suggestions which were imperative in the successful undertaking of my seminar.
Last but not least I would like to thank my classmates without their patience and support this
seminar would not have been successful. I would also extend my heartfelt thanks to my family
and well-wishers.

ABSTRACT

Thin-film electronics in its myriad forms has underpinned much of the technological innovation
in the fields of displays, sensors, and energy conversion over the past four decades. This
technology also forms the basis of flexible electronics. Here we review the current status of
flexible electronics and attempt to predict the future promise of these pervading technologies in
healthcare, environmental monitoring, displays and humanmachine interactivity, energy
conversion, management and storage, and communication and wireless networks.

Ever evolving advances in thin-film materials and devices have fueled many of the developments
in the field of flexible electronics. These advances have been complemented with the
development of new integration processes, enabling wafer-scale processes to be combined with
flexible substrates. This has resulted in a wealth of demonstrators in recent years. Following
substantial development and optimization over many decades, thin film materials can now offer a
host of advantages such as low cost and large area compatibility, and high scalability in addition
to seamless heterogeneous integration.

Contents
1.

2.

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 8
1.1

What is Flexible Electronics? ....................................................................................................... 8

1.2

History........................................................................................................................................... 8

MATERIALS FOR FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS ............................................................................... 9

2.1
2.1.1

Thin Glass ............................................................................................................................... 11

2.1.2

Plastic Film ............................................................................................................................. 11

2.1.3

Metal Film ..11

2.2

BACKPLANE ELECTRONICS................................................................................................. 12

2.2.1

Silicon Thin Film Transistors ................................................................................................. 12

2.2.2

Organic Thin Film Transistors ................................................................................................ 12

2.2.3

Transparent Thin Film Transistors .......................................................................................... 13

2.2.4

Materials for Interconnects and Contacts ................................................................................ 13

2.3

FRONT PLANE ELECTRONICS.............................................................................................. 14

2.3.1

Liquid Crystal Displays .......................................................................................................... 14

2.3.2

Electrophoretic Displays ......................................................................................................... 14

2.3.3

Organic Light Emitting Displays ............................................................................................ 14

2.4

3.

SUBSTRATE................................................................................................................................ 9

ENCAPSULATION ................................................................................................................... 15

FABRICATION TECHNOLOGY ..................................................................................................... 15

3.1

Fabrication on sheets by Batch Processing ................................................................................. 15

3.2

Fabrication on web by Roll To Roll Processing ......................................................................... 15

5

3.3

Additive Printing ......................................................................................................................... 16

4.

DEGREE OF FLEXIBILITY ............................................................................................................. 16

5.

APPLICATIONS ................................................................................................................................ 18
5.1

Holistic System Design ............................................................................................................... 19

5.2

Healthcare ................................................................................................................................... 20

5.3

Automotive Industry ................................................................................................................... 21

5.4

Wireless Systems ........................................................................................................................ 21

5.5

Electronics Embedded in the living environment ....................................................................... 21

6.

ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATIONS ............................................................................................. 22

7.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE ........................................................................................... 22

APPENDICES ............................................................................................................................................ 23

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................... 29

List of Tables

Table 1 : Properties of substrates for flexible backplanes...........................................................................10

Table 2: The Design Principles of Dieter Rams From Braun. Adopted and expanded..19

List of Figures

Figure 1: IGZO TFT and Pentacene Organic TFT .12

Figure 2: Roll to Roll Processing Steps...15
Figure 3: Bendable wrist band display.17
Figure 4: Silicon island on a substrate.17
Figure 5: Digital dashboard concept17
Figure 6: Stretchable interconnects..17
Figure 7: Next-generation flexible electronics systems and the key relevant sectors..18
Figure 8: Philips fluid smart phone concept....19
Figure 9: A bionic ear..20
Figure 10: Active thin film sensor matrix20

List of Common Abbreviations

IGZO..Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide

TFTThin Film Transistor
AMLCD.Active Matrix Liquid Crystal Display
ITO.Tin doped Indium Oxide
OLED.Organic Light Emitting Display
PDLC..Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1

What is Flexible Electronics?

Flexible electronics, also known as flex circuits, is a technology for assembling electronic
circuits by mounting electronic devices on flexible plastic substrates, such as polyimide, PEEK
or transparent conductive polyester film. Additionally, flex circuits can be screen printed silver
circuits on polyester. Flexible electronic assemblies may be manufactured using identical
components used for rigid printed circuit boards, allowing the board to conform to a desired
shape, or to flex during its use.

1.2

History

Flexible electronics has a long history. Anything thin is flexible. Forty years ago
Single-crystalline silicon solar cells were thinned to raise their power/weight ratio for use in
extraterrestrial satellites. Because these cells were thin, they were flexible and warped like corn
flakes. Today, silicon-integrated circuits are thinned to become compliant so that the owner of a
smart card does not break it when we sit on it. Flexible can mean many qualities: bendable,
conformally shaped, elastic, lightweight, non breakable, roll-to-roll manufacturable, or largearea. The field has open boundaries that move with its development and application. In this
chapter we cover a newly emerging segment of flexible electronics that is largely connected with
active thin-film transistor (TFT) circuits. The development of flexible electronics dates back to
the 1960s. The first flexible solar cell arrays were made by thinning single crystal silicon wafer
cells to 100 m and then assembling them on a plastic substrate to provide flexibility. In the mid1980s, the active-matrix liquid-crystal display (AMLCD) industry started in Japan by adopting
the large-area plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) machines that had been
developed for a-Si:H solar cell fabrication. Since then, research on flexible electronics has
expanded rapidly.

2.

MATERIALS FOR FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS

A generic large-area electronic structure is composed of a substrate, backplane electronics, a

front plane, and encapsulation. To make the structure flexible, all components must comply
with bending to some degree without losing their function.

2.1

SUBSTRATE

Flexible substrates that are to serve as drop-in replacements for plate glass substrates must meet many
requirements:
(1) Optical properties Transmissive or bottom-emitting displays need optically
clear substrates. In addition, substrates for LCDs must have low birefringence.
(2) Surface roughness The thinner the device films, the more sensitive their
electrical function is to surface roughness. Roughness over short distance must be avoided, but roughness
over long distance is acceptable. As received metal substrates usually are rough on both scales, while
plastic substrates may be rough only over long distance.
(3) Thermal and thermo mechanical properties The working temperature of the
Substrate. Thermal mismatch between device films and substrate may cause films to break during the
thermal cycling associated with fabrication. High thermal conductivity may be important for the cooling
of current-load circuits. Dimensional stability during processing is a concern with plastic substrates.
(4) Chemical properties The substrate should not release contaminants and should be inert against
process chemicals.
(5) Mechanical properties A high elastic modulus makes the substrate stiff, and a hard surface
supports the device layers under impact.
(6) Electrical and magnetic properties Conductive substrates may serve as a common node and as an
electromagnetic shield. Electrically insulating substrates minimize coupling capacitances. Magnetic

substrates can be used for the temporary mounting of the substrate during fabrication, or for
affixing the finished product.

Table 1 :Properties of substrates for flexible backplanes

Property

Unit

Glass

Thickness
Weight
Safe bending radius

m
g/m2
cm

100
250
40

100
120
4

100
800
4

R2R processable?

Unlikely

Likely

Yes

Visually transparent?

Yes

Some

No

600

180,300

1000

ppm/oC

16

10

Gpa

70

200

Max. Process Temp.

CTE
Elastic Modulus

Plastics

Stainless Steel

Permeable to oxygen,
Water vapor?
Prebake required?

No

Yes

No

Maybe

Yes

No

Planarization required?

No

No

Yes

Buffer layer required?

Maybe

Yes

Yes

Electrical conductivity

None

None

High

0.1-0.2

16

Yes

No

Thermal conductivity
Deform after device
fabrication

W/m.oC
-

No

10

Three types of substrate materials are available for flexible applications: metals, organic
polymers (plastics) and flexible glass.

2.1.1 Thin Glass

Glass plates are the current standard substrates in flat panel display. Plate glass becomes flexible
when its thickness is reduced to several 100 m. Foil glass retains all advantages of plate glass:
optical transmittance of >90% in the visible, low stress birefringence, smooth surface with RMS
roughness of 1 nm or less, temperature tolerance of up to 600oC, high dimensional stability, a
low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) which matches those of silicon device materials,
resistance to most process chemicals, impermeability against oxygen and water, scratch
resistance, and electrical insulation. However, flexible glass is fragile and difficult to handle.

2.1.2 Plastic Film

Polymer foil substrates are highly flexible, can be inexpensive, and permit roll to roll processing.
However, they are thermally and dimensionally less stable than glass substrates and are easily
permeated by oxygen and water. A glass transition temperature Tg, compatible with the device
process temperature is essential. However, a high Tg alone is not sufficient. Dimensional
stability and a low CTE are also important factors. Typical polymer films are shrunk by heating
and cooling cycles. Candidate polymers for flexible substrates include (1) the thermoplastic
semicrystalline polymers polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyethylene naphthalate (PEN),
(2) the thermoplastic noncrystalline polymers polycarbonate (PC) and polyethersulphone (PES),
and (3) high-Tg materials polyarylates (PAR), polycyclic olefin (PCO), and polyimide (PI).

2.1.3 Metal Film

Metal foil substrates less than 125 m thick are flexible and are attractive substrates for emissive
or reflective displays, which do not need transparent substrates. Stainless steel has been most
commonly used in research because of its high resistance to corrosion and process chemicals,
and its long record of application in amorphous silicon solar cells. Stainless steel substrates can
tolerate process temperature as high as 1000oC, are dimensionally stable, present a perfect
permeation barrier against moisture and oxygen, can serve as heat sink, and can provide
electromagnetic shielding. Certain magnetic steels lend themselves to magnetic mounting and
handling. In general, stainless steel substrates are more durable than plastic and glass foils.
11

3. BACKPLANE ELECTRONICS
Backplanes provide or collect power and signal to or from front planes. Backplanes may be
passive or active. The ideal flexible active-matrix backplane should be rugged, rollable or
bendable, capable of CMOS operation, and should lend itself to low-cost manufacturing.
Todays TFT backplane technologies are best described by their active semiconductor, which
may be amorphous, nano crystalline, or polycrystalline silicon, a IIVI compound
semiconductor, or an organic semiconductor in polymer or molecular form.

Figure 1: IGZO TFT and Pentacene Organic TFT

3.1.1 Silicon Thin Film Transistors

Silicon-based materials benefit from the advantages of a well-established technology and a
native oxide that is a high-quality insulator. Three approaches can be taken to preparing TFTgrade silicon on foil substrates: (1) direct deposition of the channel semiconductor, (2) deposition
of a precursor film followed by crystallization, and (3) physical transfer of separately fabricated
circuits. Techniques (1) and (2) are explored for large-area display applications. Direct
deposition can provide the full range of devices, from low OFF current amorphous silicon (aSi:H) TFTs to CMOS capable TFTs of nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H). The highest ON current
is obtained in TFTs of both polarities in polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) made by the
crystallization of an amorphous silicon precursor film.

3.1.2

Organic Thin Film Transistors

Organic polymers are soluble, and small molecules can be derivatized to soluble precursors.
Therefore, OTFTs can be fabricated by solution processing near room temperature, compatible
with low-temperature plastic substrates. More recently, displays have been made on OTFT

12

backplanes on flexible polymeric substrates. The displays include reflective LCDs,

electrophoretic displays, and OLED displays.

3.1.3 Transparent Thin Film Transistors

TFTs made of transparent materials may not need shielding from visible light to suppress photo
conductance, and can raise the pixel aperture of transmissive displays, for example on
windscreens of cars. They have been developed from the conventional wide-bandgap compound
semiconductors: GaN or SiC, and from the transparent oxide semiconductors: ZnO, In2O3, and
SnO2.

3.1.4 Materials for Interconnects and Contacts

Transparent Conductive oxides are used as interconnects in displays. An example is ITO (Tin
Doped Indium Oxide). Besides conducting organic polymers like polyanyline, polypyrole, and
polythiophene are used. Stretchable interconnects are made by filling conductive materials in
elastomers.
The search for elastic thin-film interconnects has focused on metal films deposited on or encased
in elastomers. Micro fabricated gold-film serpentines encased in a silicone elastomer conduct up
to 54% tensile strain. Stripes of thin gold film patterned on pre stretched or flat elastomeric
membranes remain electrically conducting when the membranes are stretched up to twice their
initial length. Such stretchable interconnects were used in the demonstration of an inverter circuit
made of a-Si:H TFTs on a silicone membrane.

13

3.2

FRONT PLANE ELECTRONICS

Front planes carry the specific optoelectronic application. The front plane materials of displays
include liquid crystals for transmissive displays, reflective-mode liquid crystals and
electrophoretic foils for reflective displays, and OLEDs for emissive displays. The front plane
might also be an X-ray sensor, an image sensor, a pressure sensor, a chemical sensor, an actuator
or an artificial muscle in a smart textile.

3.2.1 Liquid Crystal Displays

The LCD is a light intensity filter that is controlled by the electric field between two transparent
electrodes. These are fabricated on glass plates that are held 5 m apart by transparent spacers.
To make the LCD flexible, the liquid is encapsulated in a polymer foil. The first example is the
PDLC (Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal).

3.2.2 Electrophoretic Displays

Electrophoretic displays are reflective-type bistable devices. Bistable displays consume power
only when they are overwritten. Because they combine low-power consumption with adequate
contrast and full viewing angle, they are particularly suitable for electronic books. In
electrophoretic displays, the electric field across the electrophoretic material controls the location
and orientation of charged objects that are suspended in a liquid.

3.2.3

Organic Light Emitting Displays

OLEDs have wider viewing angles, faster response time, lower voltage operation, and possibly
lower power consumption than backlit AMLCDs. Because of their thin-film structure, OLEDs
are a natural choice for flexible displays. The two types of OLED materials are small-molecule,
with the higher efficiency, and conjugated polymers. Small-molecule OLEDs are usually
prepared by thermal evaporation, and polymer OLED by solution processing.

14

3.3

ENCAPSULATION

They are the external strength members which provide necessary protection. Single layer
metallic barrier encapsulations are commonly used. Transparent barriers are used for
optoelectronic applications. Multilayer composite barriers are used for more rugged applications.
Inorganic barriers are impermeable to atmospheric gases, but their performance is affected by
microscopic defects.

4.

FABRICATION TECHNOLOGY

4.1

Fabrication on sheets by Batch Processing

Electronic devices and circuits and display panels are made by batch processing. Flexible foil
substrates, cut to sheets, will be the drop-in replacement for the rigid glass plates or silicon
wafers. Batch processing is the execution of a series of jobs in a program without manual
intervention. This is used when the numbers of steps are more and same material is made in bulk.

4.2

Fabrication on web by Roll To Roll Processing

Large area electronics are fabricated using R2R processing. This is used when the numbers of
steps are less. Cost reduction can be achieved. This is a subtractive process i.e. materials are
deposited first and then patterned accordingly, so raw materials are wasted.

Figure 2: Roll to Roll Processing Steps

15

4.3

Additive Printing

It is a cheap, high throughput process. It uses raw materials effectively since it is an additive
process. Depositing and patterning occur at the same time. Patterned material is deposited only at
desired locations.

5.

DEGREE OF FLEXIBILITY

Two basic approaches have been employed to make flexible electronics:

(1) Transfer and bonding of completed circuits to a flexible substrate and
(2) Fabrication of the circuits directly on the flexible substrate.
In the transfer-and-bond approach, the whole structure is fabricated by standard methods on a
carrier substrate like a Si wafer or a glass plate. Then it is transferred to or fluidic self-assembled
on a flexible substrate. Their drawbacks are small surface area coverage and high cost. Bonded
circuits will likely be added to large-area electronic surfaces at low density for high-speed
communication and computation, lasing, and similarly demanding functions.
In many applications, the majority of the surface will be covered with electronics fabricated
directly on the substrate. There are many approaches to integrating disparate materials and
oftentimes flexible substrates are not fully compatible with existing planar silicon micro
fabrication processes.
Flexibility can mean many different properties to manufacturers and users. As a mechanical
characteristic, it is conveniently classified in the three categories: (1) bendable or rollable, (2)
permanently shaped, and (3) elastically stretchable. The tools for micro fabrication have been
developed for flat substrates. Therefore, at present all manufacturing is done on a flat work piece
that is shaped only as late as possible in the process. This approach benefits from the tremendous
technology base established by the planar integrated circuit and display industries.

16

Figure 3: Bendable wrist band display

Figure 5: Digital dashboard concept

Figure 4: Silicon island on a substrate

Figure 6: Stretchable interconnects

When a mechanically homogeneous sheet of thickness d is bent to a cylindrical radius r,

perpendicularly to the axis of bending, its outside surface expands and its inside surface is
compressed by the bending strain = d/2r. When the sheet is not homogeneous, as is the case for
an a-Si:H TFT layer on a plastic foil, the strain in the surfaces is modified from this simple
expression, which however remains a useful approximation. In TFT backplanes or in entire
displays, the strain must be kept below a critical value. The straightforward approach to
keeping low even in sharp bending, to small r, is to make the structure thin.
.

17

6.

APPLICATIONS

Figure 7: Next-generation flexible electronics systems and the key relevant sectors

Figure 7 shows the next-generation flexible electronics systems and the key relevant sectors, the
underlying materials, such as the industry pervading, historically relevant and standard
aluminium, silicon, germanium, and silver, as well as more exotic low-dimensional materials
including nanowires, quantum dots, and nanotubes, all of which will be necessary to facilitate the
development and the exploitation of disruptive applications in the fields of human interactivity,
computation, displays, energy generation, and storage as well as electronic textiles.

18

6.1

Holistic System Design

Throughout the 20th century, industrial designers have supported firms to ensure that new
technologies, particularly disruptive technologies such as flexible electronics, are embodied in
forms that can be commercialized. Earlier pioneers of industrial design, such as Peter Behrens, a
German architect who worked closely with Allgemeine Elektrizitats Gesellschaft in the early
1900s, have helped turn radical new technologies into products for mass consumption. In the
mid-20th century, Dieter Rams formalized the design excellence principles, as outlined in Table
2, to guide the future generations of industrial designers.

Table 2: The Design Principles of Dieter Rams From Braun. Adopted and expanded

Figure 8: Philips fluid smart phone concept

19

6.2

Healthcare

Flexibility in electronic materials is very attractive for medical and bioengineering. Living
organisms are intrinsically flexible and malleable. Thus, flexibility is a necessity for successful
integration of electronics in biological systems. One example is the bionic eye. Here a visioncompromised patient requires an electrically active addressable matrix array, with each unit or
pixel recording an image and transmitting this to the patient via the optic nerve. The bionic ear,
offers an ideal platform for flexible thin-film electronics. With a unique stiffness and geometry, a
thin film coupled together with pressure sensing arrays acts as a bio mimicking auditory system.
At a specific frequency and sound pressure, the basal membrane vibrates at a specific location
with predefined amplitude. A microarray pressure sensor can be activated for each specific
location, emitting a signal of known pitch and loudness, mimicking the incident sound. Further
applications of microarray systems based on such flexible thin-film technology are as a
facilitator for artificial noses and tongues. Sensory receptors in olfactory (nose) and gustatory
(taste) systems have a range of chemical receptors. Many of these receptors sense particular
chemical properties, including acidity, salt concentration, and enzyme affinity. The frequency of
neurons firing is often sensed in proportion to the magnitude of the taste or smell.
Figure 9: A bionic ear

Figure 10: Active thin film sensor matrix

20

6.3

Automotive Industry

Electric vehicles require unfeasibly heavy and large batteries to store equivalent energy as a tank
of fuel. As well as low energy density, batteries suffer from low power density (W/kg) leading to
electric vehicles with comparatively low performance when compared to equivalent fuel
powered vehicles. Advances in thin-film battery technology through the use of nanostructures for
enhanced energy density and hybrid super capacitor allowed increased energy and power
densities. Lightweight substrates, such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and paper, have led
to a reduction in battery weight. Furthermore, recent developments in the structure of batteries
has resulted in their seamless integration within the carbon fiber frames of electric vehicles,
leading to significant overall weight and space savings.

6.4

Wireless Systems

Mobile devices offer almost seamless data connectivity, a state which is enabled by rapid
progress in wireless communication networks. Flexible and stretchable antennas have also been
demonstrated for applications such as clothing textiles, medical applications, and flexible RFID
tags. The key advantages of such antennas are their robustness, lightweight, and tolerance to
moderate mechanical strain.

6.5

Electronics Embedded in the living environment

Controllable insulation in residential and office buildings, in accordance with the seasonal
variations, can be achieved with smart window technologies. These offer single or multiple
functionalities, for example, controllable change in wavelength-dependent/independent light
transmission/ reflection, direct/indirect energy saving (e.g., blocking sunlight upon heating,
hence lowering air-conditioning energy consumption) and even energy generation (e.g.,
integrated PV modules). Building-integrated PV (BIPV) systems serve multiple purposes, giving
an advantage over conventional PV systems. BIPV modules do not require moving parts and fuel
and do not create pollutants over their life cycle.

21

7.

ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATIONS

ADVANTAGES

Reduced size and weight

Increased Circuitry density
Can be shaped accordingly during use
Reduced power consumption

8.

DISADVANTAGES
Small lifetime
Complex manufacturing processes
Expensive
Increased heat dissipation per volume

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE

Based on the current socioeconomic trends, some of the more likely technological future needs
are outlined and the potential exploits of thin-film flexible electronics in various market sectors
are discussed.
The novel properties of thin-film, flexible electronics such as low weight, mechanical flexibility
and durability, simple device integration, along with low-cost and large-area processability allow
them to be utilized in a wide range of applications from space exploration to water purification,
and from displays to conformally integrated automotive batteries.
Most of the present industrial development of flexible electronics is for flexible displays and Xray sensor arrays. Research laboratories are inventing many new flexible technologies that range
from elastically conforming sensor surfaces to electronic nets.
The task of the researcher is to offer the industrialist a choice of new applications and show the
path to them by developing the necessary architecture, circuits, materials, and fabrication
technology.
Future developments in flexible thin-film technology are likely to enhance the performance of
the devices discussed here, leading to more widespread applications.

22

APPENDICES
IEEE Based Paper

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REFERENCES

Flexible Electronics: Materials and Applications, Springer Science + Business Media,

2009

Flexible Electronics: The next ubiquitous platform, IEEE Proceedings,2012

Patterning Processes for Flexible Electronics, IEEE Proceedings,2015

29