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Low-temperature polysilicon

2009-04-17View Original

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The full name of low-temperature polycrystalline silicon is “Low Temperature Poly-Silicon (LTPS); polycrystalline silicon is also abbreviated as p-Si, the same hereafter.” It is a branch of polycrystalline silicon technology. For LCD displays, using polycrystalline silicon liquid crystal materials offers many advantages, such as the ability to make thin-film circuits thinner and smaller, as well as lower power consumption. However, in the early stages of polysilicon technology development, in order to convert the glass substrate from an amorphous silicon structure (a-Si) to a polysilicon structure, a high-temperature oxidation process using laser annealing was necessary; during this process, the temperature of the glass substrate exceeded 1000 degrees Celsius. As is well known, ordinary glass softens and melts at such high temperatures, making it impossible to use it properly; only quartz glass can withstand such high temperatures. Since quartz glass is not only expensive but also small in size, making it unsuitable as a panel for displays, manufacturers naturally turned to the inexpensive amorphous silicon material (a-Si), which is what we see today. However, the industry did not give up its efforts as a result; it became a consensus to develop low-temperature polysilicon technology. After years of effort, low-temperature polysilicon finally began to become a reality. Compared to traditional high-temperature polysilicon, although low-temperature polysilicon also requires a laser irradiation process, it uses an excimer laser as the heat source. After passing through a transmission system, the laser generates a laser beam with evenly distributed energy, which is then directed at a glass substrate with an amorphous silicon structure. When this glass substrate absorbs the energy from the excimer laser, it transforms into a polysilicon structure. Since the entire processing is carried out at temperatures below 500–600 degrees Celsius, ordinary glass substrates can also be used, which **reduces manufacturing costs and makes it entirely feasible to introduce polycrystalline silicon technology into the LCD display industry**. In addition to reduced manufacturing costs, the advantages of low-temperature polysilicon technology are also reflected in the following aspects. The electron mobility is higher. Electron mobility is measured in units of “cm2/V-sec”, and it refers to the distance that electrons can travel per second under a voltage of one volt. In traditional a-Si amorphous silicon LCDs, the electron mobility is generally below 0.5 cm2/V-sec, whereas the electron mobility of P-Si polycrystalline silicon panels can reach 200 cm2/V-sec, which is 400 times higher than that of amorphous silicon materials. Due to the absolute advantage of polysilicon materials in this aspect, polysilicon LCDs have an extremely fast response time; this is reflected in display products as a shorter response time, which better meets the practical requirements of large-screen LCDs. Thin-film circuits occupy less area. As we know, liquid crystal materials display different images by controlling the passage or blocking of light; therefore, each liquid crystal pixel requires a dedicated TFT thin-film circuit. This thin-film circuit corresponds one-to-one with the liquid crystal pixels and becomes part of them; since the circuit itself is not transparent, the light from the backlight is blocked by it. The larger the area occupied by the thin-film circuit, the less light it can allow to pass through, which results in the liquid crystal pixels appearing darker in the final display. And if the area occupied by the thin-film circuit is small, more light passes through, allowing the liquid crystal pixels to achieve a higher output brightness even with an unchanged backlight. The LCD industry has introduced the term \"Aperture Ratio\" to describe this phenomenon; the aperture ratio refers to the ratio of the area through which light can pass in each pixel to the total area of that pixel. Obviously, the smaller the area occupied by the thin-film circuit, the larger the light-transmitting area becomes; the higher the opening ratio, the brighter the overall image. Traditional a-Si amorphous silicon materials perform poorly in terms of open area, and the reason for this is the large size of the resulting thin-film circuits. Although many manufacturers have tried various methods to improve this parameter, with little success. p-Si polycrystalline silicon materials have a clear advantage in this regard; LCD panels manufactured using this technology allow for thinner and smaller thin-film circuits, with lower power consumption for the circuits themselves as well. More importantly, the smaller thin-film circuits enable polycrystalline silicon LCDs to achieve a higher aperture ratio, resulting in better brightness and color output even with an unchanged backlight module. Viewed from another angle, using polysilicon material can also effectively reduce the power consumption of the backlight while maintaining the same brightness; as a result, the overall power consumption of the device is **reduced, which is highly beneficial for laptop LCD screens. Higher resolution: More and more LCD manufacturers are paying attention to p-Si polycrystalline silicon technology. As mentioned earlier, the thin-film circuits in p-Si polycrystalline silicon panels are extremely small, and their aperture ratio is much higher than that of conventional amorphous silicon panels. As a result, it is relatively easy to achieve high resolution in LCD panels of this type, and they can deliver superior display quality. For example, in the case of a 12-inch laptop LCD screen, by using low-temperature polysilicon technology, it is possible to achieve a high resolution of 1024×768 while keeping the aperture ratio at a level comparable to that of conventional desktop LCD monitors. This results in a significant improvement in the screen’s brightness, contrast, and color quality, thus rendering the claim that \"there are no good 12-inch screens\" obsolete. In fact, the resolution that polycrystalline silicon technology can achieve far exceeds people’s imagination. For example, in three-chip LCD projectors, High Temperature Poly-Silicon technology is widely used; it enables an ultra-high resolution of 1024×768 even when the panel size is only 1.3 inches. Ordinary amorphous silicon technology simply cannot reach such a level of resolution. It features a simple structure and higher stability. In traditional amorphous silicon LCD displays, the drive IC and the glass substrate are designed as separate components that cannot be integrated together; as a result, a large number of connectors are required between the drive IC and the glass substrate. Generally speaking, an amorphous silicon LCD panel requires around 4,000 connectors, which inevitably leads to a complex structure, high manufacturing costs for the modules, poor stability of the panel, and a relatively high failure rate. Furthermore, the separate design of the drive IC from the glass substrate also makes it difficult to further reduce the thickness of LCDs, which is a significant drawback for thin and lightweight laptops and tablet PCs. In contrast, low-temperature polysilicon technology does not have this problem either. The drive IC can be integrated directly with the glass substrate, reducing the number of required connectors to less than 200; the total number of components in the display is 40% less compared to traditional a-Si amorphous silicon technology. This also makes the structure of the panel very simple and increases its stability; theoretically, the manufacturing cost of polycrystalline silicon LCD panels will also be lower than that of traditional technologies. At the same time, the integrated design eliminates the need for additional space occupied by the drive IC, allowing LCD displays to be made lighter and thinner, which will undoubtedly be well received by the market.

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