Low-Voltage Operated High DC Gain Amplification Stage Based on Large-Area Manufacturable Amorphous Oxide Semiconductor Thin-Film Transistor

Abstract

The industry-standard amorphous metal–oxide–semiconductor (AOS) thin-film transistor (TFT) technology is demonstrated for making low-voltage high intrinsic gain devices. It is revealed by the technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulation that, without need of making Schottky barrier contacts, large output resistance and high intrinsic gain can be achieved in a subthreshold regime for AOS TFTs. It is further proved by the measurement results with the fabricated AOS TFT from a Gen-4.5 manufacturing line. A simple single-stage zero- <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textit{V}_{\text{GS}}$</tex-math> </inline-formula> load amplifier is implemented as a proof of concept, achieving a voltage gain larger than 50 for weak signal detection at a supply voltage of 5 V.