Amorphous silicon thin film transistors and application to image sensors

High performance amorphous silicon thin film transistors (TFTs) for application to high-speed one-dimensional color image sensors (600 dpi, 7320 pixels X 3 colors, 48 MHz data rate) and two-dimensional image sensors (200 dpi, 600 x 400 pixels, 40 MHz data rate) have been investigated. In order to meet the requirements for these applications, TFT circuits, layout designs, materials and fabrication processes are studied and optimized. The devices fabricated by integrating the results of the investigations show good results in terms of the key characteristics for image sensors such as linearity, signal/noise ratio, and responsivity, resulting in high image quality.