Amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) thin film transistor (TFT) was fabricated by an advanced self-aligned imprint lithography (ASAIL) method with a hybrid etching process. The SAIL is a top-down method to fabricate a TFT using a three-dimensional multilayer etch mask having all pattern information for the TFT. The hybrid etching process was newly applied in the original SAIL process for the purpose of reducing plasma damage of a-IGZO channel layer during plasma etching in the ASAIL process. This research demonstrated that the a-IGZO TFT could be successfully fabricated by the ASAIL process. In particular, the hybrid etching process applied in this paper can be utilized for the back-channel-etch type a-IGZO TFT and further extended for the roll-to-roll backplane process.

This paper proposes a read-only memory driving circuit for RFID tags based on a-IGZO thin-film transistors. The circuit consists of a Johnson counter and monotype complementary gates. By utilizing complementary signals to drive a decoder based on monotype complementary gates, the propagation delay can be decreased and the redundant current can be reduced. The Johnson counter reduces the number of registers. The new circuit can effectively avoid glitch generation, and reduce circuit power consumption and delay.

This paper discusses Mixed Signal LSI technology with embedded power transistors. Trends in Mixed Signal LSI technology are explained at first. Mixed signal LSI technology has proceeded with the help of fine fabrication technology and SOI technology. The BEOL transistor is a new development, which uses InGaZnO (IGZO) as its TFT channel material. The BEOL transistor is one future device which enables 3D IC and chip shrinking technology.

Microwave photoconductivity decay (µ-PCD) method was applied to evaluate the effects of chemical composition and Ar+ plasma induced damage on the bulk and the surface states in amorphous In-Ga-Zn-O (a-IGZO) films. It was found that the peak reflectivity signal in the photoconductivity response increased with decreasing the Ga content, and had a strong correlation with the a-IGZO transistor performances. In addition, the peak reflectivity signals obtained after various Ar+ plasma treatment duration were well correlated with the transistor characteristics. With Ar+ plasma treatment, the peak reflectivity signal decreased in accordance with degradation of transistor characteristics. The µ-PCD method was found to be a very useful tool not only to evaluate the bulk and the surface states, but also to predict the performance of a-IGZO transistors subjected to various plasma processes in the production.