A stable n-channel mirrorable current source for versatile analog design with thin film transistors

Author

Sambandan, Sanjiv ; Nathan, Arokia

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Waterloo Univ., Ont.

fYear

2005

fDate

7-10 Aug. 2005

Firstpage

836

Abstract

Amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film transistors (TFTs) are widely used as the active element in large area sensor and display systems. Circuit design with the TFT is constrained by the absence of p-channel devices, and thereby a current source, due to low device mobility. Moreover, the device is also prone to a bias dependent threshold voltage instability. We present a mirrorable current source built with only n-channel devices, which is immune to the variation in threshold voltage, thereby effectively increasing the application spectrum of the TFT

Keywords

amorphous semiconductors; constant current sources; display devices; image sensors; integrated circuit design; silicon; thin film transistors; Si:H; a-Si:H TFT; amorphous silicon TFT; device mobility; large area display system; large area sensor; n-channel mirrorable current source; thin film transistor; threshold voltage instability; versatile analog circuit design; Amorphous silicon; Circuit synthesis; Computer displays; Costs; Fabrication; Sensor phenomena and characterization; Sensor systems; Thin film sensors; Thin film transistors; Threshold voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Circuits and Systems, 2005. 48th Midwest Symposium on

Conference_Location

Covington, KY

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9197-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWSCAS.2005.1594231

Filename

1594231