I. Introduction
Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) technology is widely used in modern flat panel display (FPD) product because of its low cost, low temperature processing, and better uniform characteristics in the substrates. Besides, the amorphous-silicon gate driver (ASG) technology has been a key technique to design advanced panels in the FPD marketing [1]–[8]. As we have been known that there is a major contrast between the conventional panel and the ASG panel as shown in Fig. 1. In the conventional panel, the gate drivers are made of silicon chips and are mounted on the panel externally. However, in ASG panel, the gate drivers are made of the a-Si:H TFTs and are embedded in the panel internally. Not only the panels for smart phones that can integrate ASGs but also the panels for tablet computers and desktop monitors technologically. First advantage of the ASG FPD is the elimination of the external gate driver ICs economically. It is the key factor to reduce fabrication cost for ASG panels. Second is the improved productivity due to the unnecessary bonding process of gate driver ICs. Besides, for most portable FPD product, the power consumption and reliability should be in the careful considerations. When applying the ASG technology in the portable product, the low electron mobility and threshold voltage shift effect could restrict the design and affect the performance greatly [9]–[12].
The diagram to show the difference between the conventional FPD with gate driver ICs and the ASG fpd.