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Large-scale complementary integrated circuits based on organic transistors

Abstract

Thin-film transistors based on molecular and polymeric organic materials have been proposed for a number of applications, such as displays1,2,3 and radio-frequency identification tags4,5,6. The main factors motivating investigations of organic transistors are their lower cost and simpler packaging, relative to conventional inorganic electronics, and their compatibility with flexible substrates7,8. In most digital circuitry, minimal power dissipation and stability of performance against transistor parameter variations are crucial. In silicon-based microelectronics, these are achieved through the use of complementary logic—which incorporates both p- and n-type transistors—and it is therefore reasonable to suppose that adoption of such an approach with organic semiconductors will similarly result in reduced power dissipation, improved noise margins and greater operational stability. Complementary inverters and ring oscillators have already been reported9,10. Here we show that such an approach can realize much larger scales of integration (in the present case, up to 864 transistors per circuit) and operation speeds of 1 kHz in clocked sequential complementary circuits.

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Figure 1: Chemical structures of organic semiconductors and schematic layer structures of circuits.
Figure 2: Representation of circuits and their constituents.
Figure 3: Characteristics of the 48-stage shift register.
Figure 4: Row decoder design.
Figure 5: Characteristics of the three-bit decoder.

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Acknowledgements

We thank B. Batlogg, E. A. Chandross, A. J. Lovinger, J. H. O'Neill, M. Pinto, V. R. Raju, E. Reichmanis, J. Rogers, R. E. Slusher and P. Wiltzius for discussions.

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Correspondence to A. Dodabalapur.

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Crone, B., Dodabalapur, A., Lin, YY. et al. Large-scale complementary integrated circuits based on organic transistors. Nature 403, 521–523 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35000530

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