Accelerated stress testing of a-Si:H pixel circuits for AMOLED displays

Electronics reliability testing is traditionally carried out by accelerating the failure mechanisms using high temperature and high stress, and then predicting the real-life performance with the Arrhenius model. Such methods have also been applied to organic light-emitting diode (OLED) testing to predict lifetimes of tens of thousands of hours. However, testing the active matrix OLED thin-film transistor (TFT) backplane is a unique and complex case where standard accelerated testing cannot be directly applied. This is because the failure mechanism of pixel circuits is governed by multiple material and device effects, which are compounded by the self-compensating nature of the circuits. In this paper, we define and characterize the factors affecting the primary failure mechanism and develop a general method for accelerated stress testing of TFT pixel circuits in a-Si AMOLED displays. The acceleration factors derived are based on high electrical and temperature stress, and can be used to significantly reduce the testing time required to guarantee a 30 000-h display backplane lifespan.