ULTRATHIN FLEXIBLE

SILICON CHIPS

Presentation By:

Chahat Gupta

JUST IMAGINE As you head for the shower, still groggy, a tiny,

flexible sensor chip in yesterday’s clothes reminds you that they need to be washed.

As you leave your house, tiny sensors in the carpet and wallpaper put some appliances into standby mode.

At the airport, a flexible electronic ticket guides you to the right gate.

a wireless interface between your ticket, your passport, and a retinal scanner gives you immediate clearance.

Introducing a new technology

It is always a chicken-and-egg problem: Which should come first, the technology or the application?

To sustain the miniaturization of microelectronics,upto 5 to 10µm thick chips to be used as layers in 3-D stacks by 2020.

the thinnest chips currently being made by subtractive techniques and are 50 µm thick.

INTRODUCTION

This technology is already on a path, a time when it is seen everywhere.

Made primarily from nonsilicon organic and inorganic semiconductors, including polymers and metal oxide semiconductors.

Flexible chips are an exciting alternative to rigid silicon circuits in simple products like photovoltaic cells and television screens.

But some way or the other todays flexible chips don’t work as well as the previously made silicon chips.

TECHNOLOGY USED

Made primarily from nonsilicon organic and inorganic semiconductors, including polymers and metal oxide semiconductors.

Silicon is an ideal semiconductor for such chips because its ordered structure allows for well-behaved switches that are far faster than organic alternatives.

By combining today’s cheap, large-scale flexible electronics with silicon that’s just as powerful as the best available today—but thinner.

TODAY’S SILICON CHIPS

Usually built on wafers up to a millimeter

thick.

Slimmed down to thicknesses of 100 to 300

micrometers, silicon wafers are still stiff, but

they must be handled carefully.

Below 50 µm, silicon chips hit a sweet spot:

They get more flexible and more stable but at

such thickness these may fracture under

there own weight.

Below 10 µm, a silicon chip even becomes

optically transparent, which eases the

alignment of chips during assembly

Developing Technique

At the Institut für Mikroelektronik

Stuttgart, in Germany, they are

developing such an additive

technique, under the trade name

CHIPFILM.

It entails growing crystalline silicon,

layer by layer, on a foundation laced

with sealed cavities.

HOW IS IT PRODUCED?

HOW IS IT PRODUCED?

The thinness of the chip enhances stackability.

The purpose of stacking is to shorten the distance between transistors.

These are then connected vertically using through-silicon wires, thus speeding performance.

To accommodate even more transistors the chips need to get even more thinner.

When that happens, they’ll be ready to support a whole new world of applications.

FEATURES

They’re able to bend, roll and even

twist at a very high rate.

They’re as strong as stainless steel.

They are made optically transparent.

Even a very large circuit can be folded

into a much smaller part without it

being torn or damaged.

USES OF FLEXIBLE SILICON

CHIPS

It could lead to many high-performance flexible applications, including displays, sensors, wireless interfaces, energy harvesting, and wearable biomedical devices.

They can be used as sensors on windows and other transparent surfaces.

Ultrathin silicon chips can be placed on a flexible substrate (commonly a polymer foil, but also paper or even cloth) to form a hybrid system-in-foil (SiF) device.

Because ultrathin chips can be cut in many shapes, they could be especially useful for biomedical applications.

Conclusion!!

At last I would conclude just by

saying that in the near future we

would definitely see a massive use of

such ultra thin silicon chips even in

our daily uses.

Queries??

Queries??