| World's first completely transparent IC |
Mar. 20, 2006
 Oregon State University (OSU) researchers claim to have fabricated the world's first "completely transparent" ICs from inorganic compounds. The technology can enable extremely inexpensive electronics for use in "throw away" devices, and is expected to be used in automobile windshields, cell phones, TVs, games, and toys, among other applications, OSU said.
OSU also believes that the technology might result in more efficient solar cells and improvements to LCD displays (liquid crystal displays), it said.
 | This petri dish contains glass slides coated with transparent electronics
(Click to enlarge) |
In a statement, OSU called its accomplishment "another major step forward for the rapidly evolving field of transparent electronics," and said it "marks a significant milestone on the path toward functioning transparent electronics applications, which many believe could be a large future industry."
The project has received support from the NSF (National Science Foundation), the Army Research Office, and Hewlett-Packard Corp. Additionally, the University recently licensed to HP the rights to market new products based the project's findings, resulting in a partner that can help "scale up and commercialize" the technology
OSU "believe[s] the evolution of these products and the collaboration with HP may be one of the most valuable the university has ever developed with private industry," it said.
Project status
OSU says the near-invisible integrated circuit (IC) implements a five-stage ring oscillator, a function often used for testing and demonstrating new technologies. This is analogous to when software developers write programs that simply say "hello world," as an early step in testing and debugging new computer languages.
 | Wager with the electronics
(Click to enlarge) |
"This is a quantum leap in moving transparent electronics from the laboratory toward working commercial applications" said John Wager, a professor of electrical engineering at OSU. "It's proof that transparent transistors can be used to create an integrated circuit, tells us quite a bit about the speeds we may be able to achieve, and shows we can make transparent circuits with conventional photolithography techniques, the basic patterning methods used to create electronics all over the world.
"Wager noted several remaining challenges that must be overcome before the technology is fully commercialized, including scaling the technology up to larger sizes, and the development of a "P-channel" device. The latter would reduce power consumption and allow transparent chips to implement both analog and digital processing, Wager said.
"What's exciting is that all of the remaining work seems very feasible," Wager added. "It will take some time, but we just don't see any major obstacles that are going to preclude the commercial use of transparent electronics with these compounds. In a way, it's shocking how fast this field has progressed. We might be able to bring transparent integrated circuits to widespread use in five years or so, a process that took a couple of decades in the early evolution of conventional electronics."
Members of the OSU team show off samples of their work
(Click to enlarge)
An article reporting on OSU's project will appear in a future issue of the professional journal, Solid State Electronics, OSU said.
(Photos courtesy of Oregon State University / Oakley Photography)
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