Robust design and design automation for flexible hybrid electronics

Flexible electronics is promising for a number of emerging applications such as foldable smartphone, wearables and internet of things (IoT) [1], [2], [3]. However, the key elements of flexible electronics, the thin-film transistors (TFT), often suffer from large process variations and inferior reliability. There is also a lack of trustworthy compact models for these devices. This paper gives an overview of design challenges for the flexible circuits, introduces a robust design style, Pseudo-CMOS, that has been widely used for digital TFT designs, and highlights the development of a flexible hybrid electronics process design kit (FHE-PDK) supporting design automation and verification of flexible hybrid electronics.