Reliability improvement of a flexible FD-SOI MOSFET via heat management

Abstract

Ultra-thin single-crystalline Si membrane transistors on a polymer substrate have drawn attention for flexible electronics applications. However, these devices accompany a reliability issue stemming from severe self-heating because of the inherent poor thermal conductivity of the polymer substrate. In the present study, under an operational condition of V-G = 3V and V-D = 8V, the temperature of the Si membrane transistor on the polymer substrate soared to about 64 degrees C immediately and remained consistently high. The excess heat generated from the active channel significantly degraded the device performance. However, the implementation of a silver heat spreading layer (HSL) between the active channel and the polymer substrate significantly alleviated the self-heating effect as the silver film rapidly spread the generated heat. The efficient heat spreading, monitored via a high resolution infrared thermal microscope, correlated well with the charge transfer characteristics of the device. These results may be helpful to realize high performance flexible devices using a silicon membrane. Published by AIP Publishing.