Thin-Film Transistor Integration for Biomedical Imaging and AMOLED Displays

Thin film transistor (TFT) backplanes are being continuously researched for new applications such as active-matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) displays, sensors, and x-ray imagers. However, the circuits implemented in presently available fabrication technologies including poly silicon (poly-Si), hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H), and organic semiconductor, are prone to spatial and/or temporal non-uniformities. While current-programmed active matrix (AM) can tolerate mismatches and non-uniformity caused by aging, the long settling time is a significant limitation. Consequently, acceleration schemes are needed and are proposed to reduce the settling time to 20 µs. This technique is used in the development of a pixel circuit and system for biomedical imager and sensor. Here, a metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) capacitor is adopted for adjustment and boost of the circuit gain. Thus, the new pixel architecture supports multi-modality imaging for a wide range of applications with various input signal intensities. Also, for applications with lower current levels, a fast current-mode line driver is developed based on positive feedback which controls the effect of the parasitic capacitance. The measured settling time of a conventional current source is around 2 ms for a 100-nA input current and 200-pF parasitic capacitance whereas it is less than 4 μs for the driver presented here. For displays needed in mobile devices such as cell phones and DVD players, another new driving scheme is devised that provides for a high temporal stability, low-power consumption, high tolerance of temperature variations, and high resolution. The performance of the new driving scheme is demonstrated in a 9-inch fabricated display intended for DVD players. Also, a multi-modal imager pixel circuit is developed using this technique to provide for gain-adjustment capability. Here, the readout operation is not destructive, enabling the use of low-cost readout circuitry and noise reduction techniques. In addition, a highly stable and reliable driving scheme, based on step calibration is introduced for high precision displays and imagers. This scheme takes advantage of the slow aging of the electronics in the backplane to simplify the drive electronics. The other attractive features of this newly developed driving scheme are its simplicity, low-power consumption, and fast programming critical for implementation of large-area and high-resolution active matrix arrays for high precision

Eurodisplay 2019

The collection includes abstracts of reports selected by the program by the conference committee

A Survey on Recent Advances in Organic Visible Light Communications

Visible light communication (VLC) employs light emitting diodes (LEDs) to provide illumination and data communications simultaneously. Organic LEDs (OLEDs) employing small molecules and long-chain polymers PLEDs, have been gaining attention within the VLC research community due to their inherent advantages such as flexible substrates and low-cost manufacturing. However, the carrier mobility of organic semiconductors is much slower than the devices composed of metal alloys, such as gallium nitride, thus leading to a restriction in the OLED modulation bandwidth. The manufacturing processes, materials and the photoactive size of the devices can affect the raw bandwidth of OLEDs. To increase the transmission speeds, novel approaches have been proposed including equalization techniques, signalling schemes and the optimum driver circuits. The paper provides a survey on the evolution of OLED-based VLC systems, and the respective challenges and recent progresses

Mathematical Analysis of Charge and Heat Flow in Organic Semiconductor Devices

Organische Halbleiterbauelemente sind eine vielversprechende Technologie, die das Spektrum der optoelektronischen Halbleiterbauelemente erweitert und etablierte Technologien basierend auf anorganischen Halbleitermaterialien ersetzen kann. Für Display- und Beleuchtungsanwendungen werden sie z. B. als organische Leuchtdioden oder Transistoren verwendet. Eine entscheidende Eigenschaft organischer Halbleitermaterialien ist, dass die Ladungstransporteigenschaften stark von der Temperatur im Bauelement beeinflusst werden. Insbesondere nimmt die elektrische Leitfähigkeit mit der Temperatur zu, so dass Selbsterhitzungseffekte, einen großen Einfluss auf die Leistung der Bauelemente haben. Mit steigender Temperatur nimmt die elektrische Leitfähigkeit zu, was wiederum zu größeren Strömen führt. Dies führt jedoch zu noch höheren Temperaturen aufgrund von Joulescher Wärme oder Rekombinationswärme. Eine positive Rückkopplung liegt vor. Im schlimmsten Fall führt dieses Verhalten zum thermischen Durchgehen und zur Zerstörung des Bauteils. Aber auch ohne thermisches Durchgehen führen Selbsterhitzungseffekte zu interessanten nichtlinearen Phänomenen in organischen Bauelementen, wie z. B. die S-förmige Beziehung zwischen Strom und Spannung. In Regionen mit negativem differentiellen Widerstand führt eine Verringerung der Spannung über dem Bauelement zu einem Anstieg des Stroms durch das Bauelement. Diese Arbeit soll einen Beitrag zur mathematischen Modellierung, Analysis und numerischen Simulation von organischen Bauteilen leisten. Insbesondere wird das komplizierte Zusammenspiel zwischen dem Fluss von Ladungsträgern (Elektronen und Löchern) und Wärme diskutiert. Die zugrundeliegenden Modellgleichungen sind Thermistor- und Energie-Drift-Diffusion-Systeme. Die numerische Diskretisierung mit robusten hybriden Finite-Elemente-/Finite-Volumen-Methoden und Pfadverfolgungstechniken zur Erfassung der in Experimenten beobachteten S-förmigen Strom-Spannungs-Charakteristiken wird vorgestellt.Organic semiconductor devices are a promising technology to extend the range of optoelectronic semiconductor devices and to some extent replace established technologies based on inorganic semiconductor materials. For display and lighting applications, they are used as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) or transistors. One crucial property of organic semiconductor materials is that charge-transport properties are heavily influenced by the temperature in the device. In particular, the electrical conductivity increases with temperature, such that self-heating effects caused by the high electric fields and strong recombination have a potent impact on the performance of devices. With increasing temperature, the electrical conductivity rises, which in turn leads to larger currents. This, however, results in even higher temperatures due to Joule or recombination heat, leading to a feedback loop. In the worst case, this loop leads to thermal runaway and the complete destruction of the device. However, even without thermal runaway, self-heating effects give rise to interesting nonlinear phenomena in organic devices, like the S-shaped relation between current and voltage resulting in regions where a decrease in voltage across the device results in an increase in current through it, commonly denoted as regions of negative differential resistance. This thesis aims to contribute to the mathematical modeling, analysis, and numerical simulation of organic semiconductor devices. In particular, the complicated interplay between the flow of charge carriers (electrons and holes) and heat is discussed. The underlying model equations are of thermistor and energy-drift-diffusion type. Moreover, the numerical approximation using robust hybrid finite-element/finite-volume methods and path-following techniques for capturing the S-shaped current-voltage characteristics observed in experiments are discussed

Visible Light Optical Camera Communication for Electroencephalography Applications

Due to the cable-free deployment and flexibility of wireless communications, the data transmission in the applications of home and healthcare has shown a trend of moving wired communications to wireless communications. One typical example is electroencephalography (EEG). Evolution in the radio frequency (RF) technology has made it is possible to transmit the EEG data without data cable bundles. However, presently, the RF-based wireless technology used in EEG suffers from electromagnetic interference and might also have adverse effects on the health of patient and other medical equipment used in hospitals or homes. This puts some limits in RF-based EEG solutions, which is particularly true in RF restricted zones like Intensive Care Units (ICUs). As a recently developed optical wireless communication (OWC) technology, visible light communication (VLC) using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for both simultaneous illumination and data communication has shown its advantages of free from electromagnetic interference, potential huge unlicensed bandwidth and enhanced data privacy due to the line transmission of light. The most recent development of VLC is the optical camera communication (OCC), which is an extension of VLC IEEE standard 802.15.7, also referred to as visible light optical camera communication (VL-OCC). Different from the conventional VLC where traditional photodiodes are used to detect and receive the data, VL-OCC uses the imaging camera as the photodetector to receive the data in the form of visible light signals. The data rate requirement of EEG is dependent on the application; hence this thesis investigates a low cost, organic LED (OLED)-driven VL-OCC wireless data transmission system for EEG applications

유기발광 다이오드 표시장치를 장착한 이동형 시스템의 전력 공급 최적화

학위논문 (박사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 : 전기·컴퓨터공학부, 2012. 8. 장래혁.오늘날 스마트폰, 태블릿 PC 와 같은 휴대용 전자기기는 고성능의 중앙처리장치 (CPU), 대용량 메모리, 대형 화면, 고속의 무선 인터페이스 등을 탑재함에따라 전 력 소모량이 급속히 증가하여 그 전력 소모는 이미 소형의 랩탑 컴퓨터 수준에 이르고 있다. 성능과 전력 소모량의 측면에서 휴대용 전자기기와 랩탑 컴퓨터 사 이의 구분이 점차 사라지고 있음에도 배터리 및 전력 변환 회로는 기존의 설계 원칙들만을 따라 설계되고 있는 실정이다. 삼성전자의 갤럭시 탭 및 Apple 사의 iPad 등 스마트폰 및 태블릿 PC의 경우 1-cell 직렬 리튬 이온 전지를 사용하는 반 면, 랩탑 컴퓨터의 경우는 제조사에 따라 3-cell 에서 5-cell 직렬 등으로 설계되고 있다. 이는 배터리 출력 전압을 다르게 함으로써 전력 변환 효율에 영향을 준다. 전력 변환 회로의 효율 및 배터리의 수명은 입출력 전압/전류를 비롯한 동작 환경의 영향을 받는다. 휴대용 전자기기에 사용되는 각종 전자부품은 전력 소모를 줄이기 위한 다양한 기능들을 구현하고 있으며, 중앙처리장치의 동적 전압/주파 수 조절 기법 등 공급전압의 변화를 수반하는 기법 역시 다양하게 적용되고 있다. 이는 각 장치의 공급 전압 및 전류의 변화로 인한 전력 변환 회로의 효율의 변화 를 초래한다. 따라서 중앙처리장치, 디스플레이 등 주요 전력 소비 장치의 전력 절감 기법을 개발할 때에는 개별 장치의 전력 소비를 줄이는 것과 동시에 개별 장 치의 동작 행태에 대한 정확한 분석에 기반하여 배터리, 전력 변환회로의 설계가 함께이루어져야 한다. 선행 연구를 통해 배터리의 특성을 고려한 배터리 구성의 최적화 기법이 제안되었다 [1]. 중앙처리장치의 동적 전압/주파수 제어 기법에 이어 유기발광다이오드(OLED) 기반 디스플레이의 동적 구동회로 공급 전압 기법이 제안되었다 [2]. 유기발광다 이오드 디스플레이는 전력 소모 및 시야각 등 기존 액정 표시장치에 비해 여러 우수한 특성으로 인해 주목받고 있는 차세대 디스플레이 장치이다. 유기발광다 이오드 디스플레이의 적은 전력 소모량에도 불구하고 화면의 대형화 및 해상도의 고밀도화에 따라 시스템 전력 소모에서 여전히 큰 비중을 차지하고 있다. 유기발 광다이오드 디스플레이의 동적 구동회로 공급 전압 기법(OLED DVS)는 색상의 변화의 기초한 기존의 유기발광다이오드 디스플레이 전력 절감 기법과는 달리 최 소한의 이미지 왜곡만을 수반하여 대부분의 사진, 동영상 등에 적용가능한 전력 절감 기법이다. 해당 기법은 공급 전압의 변화시킬 필요가 있으며, 이를 시스템에 올바르게 통합시키기 위해서는 전력 변환 회로 및 배터리 구성에 미치는 영향을 고려해야 한다. 본 논문에서는 유기발광다이오드 디스플레이의 전력 소모와 함께 전체 시스 템 효율에 미치는 영향을 함께 고려하여 시스템을 최적화한다. 배터리 구성 역 시 기존의 설계 표준 대신 체계적인 시스템 분석에 기반한 최적화가 시도되었다. 공급전압이 조절 가능한 유기발광다이오드 디스플레이 하드웨어 및 제어기 시스 템-온-칩 (System-on-a-chip, SoC) 가 제작되었고, 그 동작 특성이 분석되었다. 기존 스마트폰 및 태블릿 PC 개발용 플랫폼의 전력 변환 효율 및 동작 특성 역시 분석 되었다. 유기발광다이오드 디스플레이의 동적 구동회로 공급 전압 기법의 동작 특성 및 스마트폰 플랫폼의 동작 특성, 배터리 특성에 대한 분석을 기반으로 시스 템 수준에서의 전력 변환 효율이 최적화되었다.Modern mobile devices such as smartphone or tablet PC are typically equipped a high-performance CPU, memory, wireless interface, and display. As a result, their power consumption is as high as a small-size laptop computer. The boundary between the mobile devices and laptop computer is becoming unclear from the perspective of the performance and power. However, their battery and related power conversion architecture are only designed according to the legacy design so far. Smartphone and tablet PCs from major vendors such as iPad from Apple or Galaxy-tab from Samsung uses 1-cell Li-ion battery. The laptop PC typically has 3-cell Li-ion battery. The output voltage of the battery affect system-level power conversion efficiency. Furthermore, traditional power conversion architecture in the mobile computing system is designed only considering the fixed condition where the system-level low-power techniques such as DVFS are becoming mandatory. Such a low-power techniques applied to the major components result in not only load demand fluctuation but also supply voltage changing. It has an effect on the battery lifetime as well as the system-level power delivery efficiency. The efficiency is affected by the operating condition including input voltage, output voltage, and output current. We should consider the operating condition of the major power consumer such as a display to enhance the system-level power delivery efficiency. Therefore, we need to design the system not only from the perspective of the power consumption but also energy storage design. The optimization of battery setup considering battery characteristics was presented in [1]. Beside the DVFS of microprocessor, a power saving technique based on the supply voltage scaling of the OLED driver circuit was recently introduced [2]. An organic light emitting diode (OLED) is a promising display device which has a lot of advantages compared with conventional LCD, but it still consumes significant amount of power consumption due to the size and resolution increasing. The OLED dynamic voltage scaling (OLED DVS) technique is the first OLED display power saving technique that induces only minimal color change to accommodate display of natural images where the existing OLED low-power techniques are based on the color change. The OLED DVS incurs supply voltage change. Therefore we need to consider the system-level power delivery efficiency and battery setup to properly integrate the DVS-enabled OLED display to the system. In this dissertation, we not only optimize the power consumption of the OLED display but also consider its effect on the whole system power efficiency. We perform the optimization of the battery setup by a systematic method instead of the legacy design rule. At first, we develop an algorithm for the OLED DVS for the still images and a histogram-based online method for the image sequence with a hardware board and a SoC. We characterize the behavior of the OLED DVS. Next, we analyze the characteristics of the smartphone and tablet-PC platforms by using the development platforms. We profile the power consumption of each components in the smartphone and power conversion efficiency of the boost converter which is used in the tablet-PC for the display devices. We optimize not only the power consuming components or the conversion system but also the energy storage system based on the battery model and system-level power delivery efficiency analysis.1 Introduction 1.1 Supply Voltage Scaling for OLED Display 1.2 Power Conversion Efficiency in MobileSystems 1.3 Research Motivation 2 Related Work 2.1 Low-Power Techniques for Display Devices 2.1.1 Light Source Control-Based Approaches 2.1.2 User Behavior-Based Approaches 2.1.3 Low-Power Techniques for Controller and Framebuffer 2.1.4 Pre-ChargingforOLED 2.1.5 ColorRemapping 2.2 Battery discharging efficiency aware low-power techniques 2.2.1 Parallel Connection 2.2.2 Constant-Current Regulator-Based Architecture 2.3 System-level power analysis techniques 3 Preliminary 38 3.1 Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) Display 3.1.1 OLED Cell Architecture 3.1.2 OLED Panel Architecture 3.1.3 OLED Driver Circuits 3.2 Effect of VDD scaling on driver circuits 3.2.1 VDD scaling for AM drivers 3.2.2 VDD scaling for PWM drivers 4 Supply Voltage Scaling and Image Compensation of OLED displays 4.1 Image quality and power models of OLED panels 4.2 OLED display characterization 4.3 VDD scaling and image compensation 5 OLED DVS implementation 5.1 Hardware prototype implementation 5.2 OLED DVS System-on-Chip implementation 5.3 Optimization of OLED DVS SoC 5.4 VDD transition overhead 6 Power conversion efficiency and delivery architecture in mobile Systems 6.1 Power conversion efficiency model of switching-Mode DC–DC converters 6.2 Power conversion efficiency model of linear regulator power loss model 6.3 Rate Capacity Effect of Li-ion Batteries 7 Power conversion efficiency-aware battery setup optimization with DVS- enabled OLED display 7.1 System-level power efficiency model 7.2 Power conversion efficiency analysis of smartphone platform 7.3 Power conversion efficiency for OLED power supply 7.4 Li-ion battery model 7.4.1 Battery model parameter extraction 7.5 Battery setup optimization 8 Experiments 8.1 Simulation result for OLED display with AM driver 8.2 Measurement result for OLED display with PWM driver 8.3 Design space exploration of battery setup with OLED displays 9 Conclusion 10 Future WorkDocto

Hybrid Nanomaterials

Two of the hottest research topics today are hybrid nanomaterials and flexible electronics. As such, this book covers both topics with chapters written by experts from across the globe. Chapters address hybrid nanomaterials, electronic transport in black phosphorus, three-dimensional nanocarbon hybrids, hybrid ion exchangers, pressure-sensitive adhesives for flexible electronics, simulation and modeling of transistors, smart manufacturing technologies, and inorganic semiconductors