Organic Light-Emitting Diodes and Silicon Integration

So far there is no technology capable in combining monolithic integration of highly efficient and stable light sources into standard silicon CMOS. For the first time OLED technology allows both large-area deposition and micro-patterning of light emitters on top of uppermost metal layers of CMOS chips. Therefore CMOS active area space below the OLED electrode is available for additional circuitry in a System-on-Chip setup, including OLED driving (as minor part of it). OLED processing is performed by post-processing at wafer-level. return of the wafers into CMOS processes is not required. Major applications are expected for microdisplays and optoelectronics (organic microsystems).

Applications microdisplays:

• electronic viewfinder
• projection
• head mounted displays (mobile communication, consumer electronic, ...)
• optical inspection
• patterend illumination

Applications optoelectronics:

• light barriers (reflection type)
• opto-couplers
• optical sensors (chemical, medical --> fluorescence, photoplethysmography,...)
• communication (chip-to-chip, board-to-board, chip-to board)

Additonally the OLED fabrication technology offers firstly the possibility to integrate highly efficient light source into silicon to establish a new class of organic based microsystems. The Fraunhofer IPMS offers developments in this novel application area. At the Smart System Integration show 2007 in Paris the Fraunhofer IPMS is going to present highly efficient OLEDs integrated into silicon backplanes in the form of rows or arrays for opto electronic and microdisplay applications.