Comparison of Pentacene and Amorphous Silicon AMOLED Display Driver Circuits

• Published in: IEEE transactions on circuits and systems. I, Regular papers Vol. 55; no. 5; pp. 1177 - 1184
• Main Authors: Vaidya, V., Soggs, S., Jungbae Kim, Haldi, A., Haddock, J.N., Kippelen, B., Wilson, D.M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.06.2008; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Active matrix organic light emitting diodes; Active-matrix (AM) display drivers; AM organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED); Amorphous silicon; amorphous silicon ( alpha -Si); analog integrated circuits; Brightness; Circuits; Devices; Driver circuits; Electronics; Flat panel displays; Liquid crystal displays; OLEDs; organic electronics; Organic light emitting diodes; Organic thin film transistors; organic thin-film transistor ( OTFT); Pentacene; Semiconductor devices; TFTs; Thin film transistors; pentacene; TFT; analog integrated circuits; AMOLED; Si; OTFT; active matrix display drivers; thin-film transistors; OLEDs; organic electronics
• ISSN: 1549-8328; 1558-0806
• DOI: 10.1109/TCSI.2008.916548

Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays offer distinct advantages over liquid crystal displays for portable electronics applications, including light weight, high brightness, low power consumption, wide viewing angle, and low processing costs. They also are attractive candidates for highly flexible substrates. In active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) displays, a small transistor circuit is used to drive each OLED device. This paper compares the simulated performance of two state-of-the-art AMOLED drivers with a proposed 5 thin-film-transistor (TFT) voltage programmed driver circuit which combines the advantages of the first two configurations. A competitive evaluation is also done between amorphous silicon (alpha-Si) and organic TFTs (OTFTs,) using comparable empirical device models for alpha-Si) and pentacene OTFTs. The 5-TFT circuit is found to match the speed of the 2-TFT while achieving a stability closer to the 4-TFT circuits and demonstrating a better speed-stability tradeoff.