Flexible Smart Display with Integrated Graphics Rasterizor using Single Grain TFTs

Abstract

Flexible electronics is a fast emerging market and includes electronics fabricated on flexible substrates, large area displays, low cost and disposable electronics. Both research and commercial institutions around the world have been trying to develop low temperature processes which will enable fabrication of electronic devices on arbitrary substrates including glass and plastic. While most of these technologies are still in the research phase, many approaches have shown promising results. One such technology is being developed in DIMES, TU Delft which uses single grain silicon crystals to fabricate Single Grain Thin Film Transistors (SG-TFTs) at plastic compatible temperatures. SG-TFTs and other similar technologies can potentially enable fabricating electronics directly on arbitrary substrates. This would further enable integration of embedded intelligence in devices that would enhance the current functionalists of displays. This paper is an effort in this direction as it undertakes a study to design a flexible display with an integrated graphics rasterizor unit. The paper introduces the novel idea to move parts of the graphics pipeline from the CPU/GPU to the display. This will add intelligence to the display so as to realize a smart-display. The paper proposes several architectures for implementing a rasterizor unit on smart-display, conceptually fabricated on a flexible substrate using SG-TFT technology. While the transistors fabricated with SG-TFT and similar technologies are relatively slower than the standard CMOS, this paper proposes and concludes that a tile based system design can potentially result into enhanced system performance.