Low temperature integration of hybrid CMOS devices on plastic substrates

The development of flexible complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuits reduces power consumption by ~50x compared to n-type (or p-type) only thin film transistor (TFT) digital circuits. In this work we demonstrate a new integration approach to fabricate CMOS circuits on plastic substrates (Poly-ethylene naphthalene, PEN). We use pentacene and amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film transistors for p-type and n-type devices, respectively. The maximum processing temperature for n-type TFTs is 180degC and 120degC for the p-type TFTs. CMOS circuits demonstrated include inverters, NAND and NOR gates. nMOS and pMOS carrier mobility achieved after the CMOS integration process flow are 1.0 and 0.05 cm
²
/V-s, respectively. Threshold voltages (V
_t
) are 3.89 V for nMOS and -1.89 V for pMOS. The voltage transfer curve of the CMOS inverter showed a gain of 16. Correct logic operation of integrated flexible NAND and NOR CMOS gates are reported.