| Displays and other large-area microelectronics represent a constantly growing research field and market, worldwide. The majority of these systems are implemented with amorphous silicon or polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors. The latter, offering much better performance and versatility, are becoming the building block of choice for high performance TFT circuits, making possible the realization of novel systems, such as monolithic flexible microelectronics.; This dissertation presents the results of research on the design, analysis and fabrication of high performance thin-film MOS devices and circuits on flexible substrates. Theoretical modeling for estimating thin-film transistor performance is described, and various implementations for these systems are discussed. Emphasis is given on metal substrates, and the whole fabrication process developed within the framework of the research conducted on the subject is detailed.; This dissertation also describes the design, development and theoretical analysis of a novel biosensor system realized with a high performance polysilicon TFT active matrix array backplane. This work has resulted in circuits of the highest performance and largest integration scale on flexible substrates to-date. |
