Building flexible circuits with selfassembly

• Published in: Circuit world Vol. 34; no. 4; pp. 25 - 31
• Main Authors: Saeedi, Ehsan, Kim, Samuel, Parviz, Babak A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Emerald Group Publishing Limited 21.11.2008
• Subjects: Assembly; Electronic engineering; Printed circuits
• ISSN: 0305-6120
• DOI: 10.1108/03056120810918097

Purpose The paper's aim is to present a method for integrating highperformance circuit components onto flexible substrates using selfassembly. The basic process of selfassembly at the micrometerscale is reviewed and recent work in building functional parts such as silicon transistors and compound semiconductor light emitting diodes, as well as their integration onto flexible plastic templates, is reported. Designmethodologyapproach A micronscale selfassembly method was used for building flexible circuits. In micronscale selfassembly, functional microcomponents are independently microfabricated and subsequently allowed to selfassemble on a template with electrical interconnects and corresponding binding sites in a fluid. Findings The selfassembly process can achieve heterogeneous integration with a potentially very high yield. Successful assembly of functional microcomponents such as LEDs and transistors on plastic has been demonstrated. Originalityvalue The paper demonstrates fabrication techniques for freestanding microcomponents with novel designs, lowtemperature fabrication on thin plastic sheets, and using capillarygravitybased selfassembly for the integration of crystalline inorganic semiconductor components onto unconventional substrates such as flexible polymers.