Simple Transfer Technology for Fabrication of TFT Backplane for Flexible Displays

Abstract

A new simple transfer technology for the realization of flexible thin-film transistors (TFTs) on a plastic substrate has been developed. The basic principle of the proposed method is that, after all the fabrication processes for the TFT array on a temporary adhesive layer coated on a glass substrate have been completed, the TFT is then transferred onto a plastic film. A 5.8-in-diagonal wide-quarter quarter video graphics array (QVGA) organic TFT array and a 5-in-diagonal QVGA oxide TFT array were fabricated on the temporary adhesive layer. We confirmed that the degree of substrate deformation for the proposed technology was less than that for the conventional direct formation method. We also transferred both TFT arrays to plastic films and confirmed that no significant degradation in the electrical characteristics of the TFTs has occurred as a result of the transfer process. It is considered that this will be a key technology for the fabrication of large flexible displays with TFT backplanes.