The present application claims priority from Japanese application JP2016-074492 filed on Apr. 1, 2016, the content of which is hereby incorporated by reference into this application.
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a display device.
There is a known display device including a substrate having flexibility and a gate electrode and a semiconductor layer that are provided on the substrate and so disposed as to be superimposed on each other to form the gate of a transistor. In the display device, in a case where the direction in which the substrate is bent coincides with the direction in which a lengthwise axis of the gate electrode is bent, the characteristics of the transistor undesirably change in some cases due to bending stress repeatedly induced in the gate electrode. JP 2008-505352 A, which has been made in view of the problem described above, discloses a configuration in which the transistor is skillfully so arranged that the direction in which the substrate is bent does not coincide with the direction in which the lengthwise axis of the gate electrode is bent.
In the configuration disclosed in JP 2008-505352 A, however, the transistor is arranged in a restricted manner, undesirably resulting in decrease in design flexibility.
An object of the invention is to lower bending stress induced in a gate electrode with no restriction on the arrangement of a transistor.
A semiconductor device according an aspect of the invention includes a substrate having flexibility, a transistor having a gate insulating film and further having a semiconductor layer and a gate electrode that sandwich the gate insulating film, the transistor formed in an area where the substrate is bent, and a gate wiring line so formed on the substrate but in an area where the gate wiring line does not overlap with the semiconductor layer as to be connected to the gate electrode, and the gate electrode has an area that is present in an area where the gate electrode overlaps with the semiconductor layer and is thinner than at least part of the gate wiring line.
A display device according to another aspect of the invention includes a substrate having flexibility, a plurality of pixels provided on the substrate to form a display area, a transistor having a gate insulating film and further having a semiconductor layer and a gate electrode that sandwich the gate insulating film, the transistor formed in an area where the substrate is bent, and a gate wiring line so formed on the substrate but in an area where the gate wiring line does not overlap with the semiconductor layer as to be connected to the gate electrode, and the gate electrode has an area that is present in an area where the gate electrode overlaps with the semiconductor layer and is thinner than at least part of the gate wiring line.
A display device according to a substrate having a bending part, a plurality of pixels provided on a display area, each of the plurality of pixels at the bending part including a transistor having a gate insulating film, a semiconductor layer and a gate electrode; and gate wiring line being connected to the gate electrode, wherein the gate insulating film is between the semiconductor layer and the pixel electrode, the gate wiring line does not overlap with the semiconductor layer in plan view, the gate electrode has an area overlaps with the semiconductor layer in plan view, and the gate electrode is thinner than the gate wiring line.
An embodiment of the invention (hereinafter referred to as present embodiment) will be described below with reference to the drawings. The disclosed embodiment is presented only by way of example, and an appropriate change with the substance of the invention maintained that a person skilled in the art can readily conceive of, of course, falls within the scope of the invention. Further, to make the illustration in the drawings clearer, the width, thickness, shape, and other factors of each portion are diagrammatically drawn as compared with those in an actual aspect in some cases, but such a diagrammatically drawn portion is presented only by way of example and is not intended to limit the interpretation of the invention. In the present specification and drawings, the same element having been described in a figure having been shown has the same reference character and will not be described in detail as appropriate in some cases.
Further, in the present embodiment, when a positional relationship between a component and another component is defined, the words “on” and “below” suggest not only a case where the another component is disposed immediately on or below the component, but also a case where the component is disposed on or below the another component with a third component interposed therebetween.
An overview of a display device 100 according to the present embodiment will first be described with reference to
The display device 100 in the present embodiment includes a substrate 10, which has a display area A, where a plurality of pixels P are each provided with a light emitting element and the pixels P are arranged in a matrix, a counter substrate 20, which faces the substrate 10, and a driver IC 30 (integrated circuit) and an FPC (flexible printed circuits) 40, which are provided in an exposed area of the substrate 10, as shown in
With reference to
The pixel circuit in the present embodiment will next be described with reference to
The pixel circuit in the present embodiment is formed of a capacitor C, a TFT (thin film transistor) 1 and a TFT 2, a gate wiring line Vgate, a signal line Vsig, and a power supply line Vdd, as shown in
The structure of each of the pixels P in the present embodiment will next be described with reference to
As shown in
The semiconductor layer 22 serves as a channel semiconductor layer of a TFT that provides the capacitor C with potential according to the signal line 62, and the TFT corresponds to the TFT 2 in the circuit diagram of
The combination of the TFT 1 made of a low-temperature polysilicon and the TFT 2 made of an oxide semiconductor is presented by way of example. Instead, the combination of the TFT 1 made of an oxide semiconductor and the TFT 2 made of a low-temperature polysilicon may be employed. Still instead, each of the TFT 1 and the TFT 2 may be made of a low-temperature polysilicon or an oxide semiconductor.
In
The electrode layer 35 is electrically connected to the power supply line 63 and forms one end of the capacitor C in the circuit diagram of
The signal line 62 is so formed as to extend in the Y direction in
The TFT 2 has a gate formed in the area where the gate electrode 61b and the semiconductor layer 22a overlap with each other and another gate in the area where the gate electrode 61c and the semiconductor layer 22b overlap with each other (each of the areas is also called a TFT channel section), and the vias 75 and 77 serve as the source electrode and the drain electrode of the TFT 2, respectively. As described above, the present embodiment is described with reference to the TFT2 having two gates or what is called a double-gate transistor, but not necessarily. The number of gates may be one or three or more.
The gate of the TFT1 is formed in the area where the LTPS layer 21 and the electrode layer 36 overlap with each other. The LTPS layer 21 and the power supply line 63 are electrically connected to each other via a via 74, and an anode contact hole 71 is formed in the LTPS layer 21, so that predetermined current is supplied via the power supply line 63 to the OLED.
The electrode layers 35 and 36 form the areas facing each other with an insulating layer interposed therebetween to form the capacitor C. In the view of the circuit diagram of
Although not shown, a planarizing layer and the anode of the OLED are formed on the signal line 62, the power supply line 63, and the jumper wiring line 64. The anode is formed in the pixel area surrounded by the gate wiring lines 61 on the upper and lower sides and the signal line 62 and the power supply line 63 on the left and right sides. A bank is formed around the anode and around the anode contact hole 71. As described above, in the present embodiment, the two different types of TFT, the TFT 1 having a channel semiconductor layer made of LTPS and the TFT 2 having a channel semiconductor layer made of an oxide semiconductor, are disposed on the same insulating layer, as shown in
The structure of the gate electrode 61b in the present embodiment will next be described in detail with reference to
As shown in
A gate insulating film 23 is so provided on the semiconductor layer 22a as to cover the semiconductor layer 22a, as shown in
In the present embodiment, to make the display device 100 flexible, the substrate 10, on which the gate electrode 61b and other components are provided, is formed of a substrate having flexibility. The TFT 2 is formed in a bendable area of the substrate 10. In general, among the gate electrodes 61b and 61c, the semiconductor layer 22, and the gate insulating film 23, which form the TFT 2, each of the gate electrodes 61b and 61c has the largest film thickness, and it is therefore believed that the gate electrodes 61b and 61c are prone to a mechanical defect and other disadvantageous phenomena due to bending stress induced therein. Therefore, when the substrate 10 is repeatedly bent, the characteristics of the TFT 2 could undesirably change due to the bending stress induced in the gate electrodes 61b and 61c. For example, if the threshold voltage, starting characteristics, and other characteristics of the TFT 2 change, the changes affect image display operation, possibly resulting in decrease in the life of the display device 100.
To avoid the situation described above, in the present embodiment, a step is formed in a surface of the gate electrode 61b on a side opposite the gate insulating film 23 so that the gate electrode 61b has a recess 612a, as shown in
As described above, each of the gate electrodes 61b and 61c formed in the bendable area of the substrate 10 is configured to have a reduced thickness area, whereby stress induced in the gate electrodes 61b and 61c when the substrate 10 is bent can be lowered with no limitation on the arrangement of the TFT 2. As a result, variation in the characteristics of the TFT 2 can be suppressed. Further, in the present embodiment, low resistance of the gate wiring line 61a can be maintained because the thickness of the gate wiring line 61a is not reduced.
In a case where the configuration described above is employed and the TFT 2 is so arranged that the direction in which the substrate 10 is bent coincides with the direction in which the widthwise axis of the area where the gate electrode 61b overlaps with the semiconductor layer 22a is bent, variation in the characteristics of the TFT 2 that occurs in the gate electrode 61b can be further suppressed. In the present embodiment, the entire recesses 612a of the gate electrodes 61b and 61c overlap with the semiconductor layers 22a and 22b, respectively, but not necessarily. The recesses 612a may instead be so formed that at least part thereof overlaps with the semiconductor layers 22a and 22b. Further, the number of recesses 612a provided in each of the gate electrodes 61b and 61c is not limited to one. For example, a plurality of recesses 612a may be formed alongside in the lengthwise axis direction of the gate electrodes 61b and 61c (direction in which gate electrodes 61b and 61c extend).
Further, as shown in
The process of reducing the thickness of the gate electrodes in the present embodiment will next be described with reference to
The insulating film 23 is first so formed as to cover the semiconductor layer 22a. Further, the aluminum layer 611 is formed on the insulating film 23, and the titanium layer 612 is formed on the aluminum layer 611. The aluminum layer 611 and the titanium layer 612 form the gate wiring line 61 (gate wiring line 61a and gate electrode 61b) described above. A resist is then applied onto the titanium layer 612 to achieve the state shown in
A resist pattern that conforms to the gate wiring line 61 is then formed by light exposure. In this process, a recess 70a is so formed that the thickness of the resist that will form the gate electrode 61b, which is so provided as to overlap with the semiconductor layer 22a, is smaller than the thickness of the other portion, for example, in photolithography using a halftone mask to achieve the state shown in
Only the titanium layer 612 of the gate electrode 61b in the reduced thickness portion is then removed by dry etching using a fluorine radical. That is, only the aluminum layer 611 is left as the reduced thickness portion of the gate electrode 61b to achieve the state shown in
The resist is then completely removed by etching using oxygen. After the steps described above, the thickness of only part of the gate electrode 61b is reduced, and the recess 612a can thus be formed, as shown in
In the present embodiment, the TFT 2 is a top-gate TFT. The TFT 2 may instead be a TFT having a different structure, for example, a bottom-gate TFT.
While there have been described what are at present considered to be certain embodiments of the invention, it will be understood that various modifications may be made thereto, and it is intended that the appended claims cover all such modifications as fall within the true spirit and scope of the invention.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2016-074492 | Apr 2016 | JP | national |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 15474336 | Mar 2017 | US |
Child | 16731395 | US |