The team has built what it says is the most functional flexible transistor and claims it has also developed a fast, simple and inexpensive fabrication process which can scale to the commercial level. Targets for the new transistor include wearable sensors and computers.
The UW-Madison group’s work is based on BiCMOS thin-film transistors, supporting analogue and digital functionality. However, the team says that making traditional BiCMOS flexible electronics is difficult, because the process takes several months and requires many delicate, high-temperature steps.
Professor Jack Ma and his team fabricated flexible electronics on a single-crystal silicon nanomembrane on a single bendable piece of plastic. The process is said to eliminate many steps and to slash the time and cost of making transistors. “In industry, they need to finish these in three months,” he said. “We finished it in a week.”
He says his group’s simpler high-temperature process can scale to industry-level production. “One high-temperature step fixes everything like glue.”
