Radio Paper

Here, i am going to introduced you with a new era of flexible electronics. The main aim of this technology is to make large area electronics applications flexible. In this approach one new invention has been added and that is Radio Paper. This also known as Electronic Paper or Reusable paper. E-paper is a display medium that has a properties of paper like we can write or erase but electronically. Unlike paper, we can reuse it, means we can write and erase million time (through refreshing).

As this is in research and its future applications are in e-books, electronics newspaper, portable signs, and fordable, and rollable displays. 

Electronic reusable paper utilizes a display technology, invented at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), called "Gyricon."A Gyricon sheet is a thin layer of transparent plastic in which millions of small beads which are bichromal (having color, black and white)  somewhat like toner particles, are randomly dispersed. Text and images are displayed through a rotation of the beads that occurs in response to an electrical impulse: a full rotation displays as black or white, and a partial rotation displays as gray shades.The image will persist until new voltage patterns are applied.

The SQUARE

New Inventions make our life easier and ofcourse force us to invent more new things. If we talking about Money  then most of us today prefer plastic money....this is because all big showrooms, shops have scanner at their end but what happen if a person having only plastic money come at a shop where there is no facility of scanner machine?
To resolve this kind of problem for such shopkeepers, Jack Dorsey co inventor of Twitter has invented a new device, named SQUARE. The Square is a small scanner that plugs into the audio input jack on a mobile device.This Plug-in allows shopkeeper to receive credit card payments.
 It reads information on a credit card when it is swiped over there. Information will not stored within device but is encrypted and then sent over secure channels to banks. Card holder will receive a receipt of transaction by an email. There are no contracts, monthly fees, or hidden costs to accept card payments using SQUARE.

Invisible electronics system

Till now i have introduced you with Organic Electronics where we talked about flexible electronic systems, now i am going to introduced you with Invisible or Transparent Electronics which is just a magic of materials and ofcourse technology. Actually all these new technologies are possible just due to research in advance materials, like conductive polymer material, transparent material....

Transparent Materials
Wide band gap oxide semiconductors are generally transparent in the visible region of spectra. Therefore Oxide semiconductors are very interesting materials because they combine simultaneously high/low conductivity with high visual transparency and have been widely used in a variety of applications (e.g.  touch display panels, solar cells, flat panel displays, heaters, defrosters, optical coatings, among others) for more than a half-century.

Transparent Electronics Technology

Transparent electronics is an emerging technology for the next generation of optoelectronic devices, where the approach is to make transparent thin film transistor, Liquid crystal displays, light emitting diodes,lasers etc.

Transparent Thin Film Transistors

Transparent oxide semiconductor based transistors have recently been proposed using as active channel intrinsic zinc oxide (ZnO). The main advantage of using ZnO deals with the fact that it is possible to growth at/near room temperature high quality polycrystalline ZnO, which is a particular advantage for electronic drivers, where the response speed is of major importance. Besides that, since ZnO is a wide band gap material (3.4 eV), it is transparent in the visible region of the spectra and therefore, also less light sensitive.

SILVACO: A Two Dimensional TCAD Tool

What happen if it become possible to see the effect of various operations during device processing like the effect of diffusion, etching, etc. and also analyze its behavior. Thanks to SILVACO TCAD Tool due to which its become possible. Actually SILVACO is the name of a Organization which provides us Semiconductor process and Device simulation solutions.These solutions are the results of various numerical calculation based on standard models like Exponential and double Gaussian built/in Density of States distribution models, Poole/Frenkel electric field dependent mobility model, Steady/state and transient recombination models, Bimolecular Langevin Recombination Model etc.  Following are the basic tools of SILVACO TCAD Software.

1) Athena :  a Process Simulator used for simulating ion implantation, diffusion, etching, deposition, lithography, oxidation, and silicidation of semiconductor materials. It replaces costly wafer experiments with simulations.

2) ATLAS : a Device Simulator used to simulate electrical, optical, and thermal behavior of semiconductor devices. It provides a physics-based, modular, and extensible platform to analyze DC, AC, and time domain responses for all semiconductor based technologies in 2 and 3 dimensions.

3) Tonyplot:   is a graphical post processing tool for use with all SILVACO simulators. It allows us to display any data file produced by SILVACO tools, it also provides extensive “tools” for examining plots and the associated data. 

4) Dev Edit: is a device structure editor. It can be used to generate a new mesh that mean nodes at which calculation take place on an existing structure and can be used to create or modify a device. Following Figure shows a MOS Structure designed on Dev Edit.

5) Dec Build: is an interactive, graphic runtime environment for developing process and device simulation input decks. It consists of a window for input deck creation and editing, a window for simulator output and control, and a set of popups for each simulator that provide full language and run-time support.

Introduction of TCAD Tools

This time I am going to introduced you with various TCAD Tools which are used in Electronics area, TCAD stand for Technology Computer Aided Design  Tools. Actually in Electronics field, fabrication of any device is not a easy task and  ofcourse manufacture cost is too high due to which fabrication part has been done in foreign countries. Therefore Device designing is divided into two parts first is Front End Designing and second is Back End Designing. In front end designing,  we used TCAD Tools in order to design a device or circuit on computer and then simulate it to see its response before actual fabrication........ Once it has been verified then we move toward back end designing that is actual Fabrication part.

There are various TCAD tools such as CADENCE, XILINX, MATLAB, SENTAURUS, SILVACO and many other tools, CADENCE and XILINX are the circuit level tools, where we can simulate any circuit. In XILINX we use hardware description language such as Verilog or VHDL through which we can design any digital circuit where VHDL stand for very high speed integrated circuit hardware description language.Most of us are familiar with MATLAB Tool, where mathematical model of any device can simulate, this is very useful tool from modeling purpose.

SENTAURUS and SILVACO are Device and Process Simulation tool, these tools are just like real time fabrication tools. As we know that there are various processing steps which are used to fabricate a device such as doping,diffusion, oxidation, photolithography, etching, etc. On these TCAD tools we first of all  process a device by using a process simulator such as ATHENA in SILVACO and after that we simulate the device in order to know its electrical, thermal, and optical response by using a device simulator such as ATLAS in SILVACO. SENTAURUS basically support all Silicon based device but SILVACO can support Silicon as well as Organic material based devices. With the help of device and simulation tools we can internally analyze any device.In India most of research work in the field of VLSI has been carried out through SENTAURUS and SILVACO TCAD Tools.

Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED)

Imagine having a high-definition TV that is 80 inches wide and less than a quarter-inch thick, consumes less power than most TVs on the market today and can be rolled up when you're not using it. What if you could have a "heads up" display in your car? How about a display monitor built into your clothing? These devices may be possible in the near future with the help of a technology called organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).
OLEDs are solid-state devices Just like normal LCD diodes composed of thin films of organic molecules that create light with the application of electricity.When electrical current is applied, a bright light is emitted. 
OLEDs can be used to make displays and lighting. Because OLEDs emit light they do not require a backlight and so are thinner and more efficient than LCD displays(which do require a white backlight). OLEDs can provide brighter, crisper displays on electronic devices and use less power than conventional light-emitting diodes(LEDs) or liquid crystal displays(LCDs) used today.
The basic structure of an OLED is a cathode (which injects electrons), an emissive layer which is nothing but organic layer and an anode (which removes electrons). Modern OLED devices use many more layers in order to make them more efficient, but the basic functionality remains the same.
Today OLED displays are used mainly in small (2" to 5") displays for mobile devices such as phones, cameras and MP3 players. OLED displays carry a price premium over LCDs, but offer brighter pictures and better power efficiency - making it ideal for battery powered gadgets. Making larger OLEDs is possible, but difficult and expensive. There are some OLED TVs available, but these are expensive. Sony has announced the XEL-1 11quot; OLED TV back in 2007 - at about $2,500. LG is also offering an OLED TV (the 15"EL9500) which is also expensive and isn't being mass produced. Mass production of price-competitive OLED TVsets will probably begin towards the end of 2012 or early 2013.

In the OLED lighting market, several companies (such as Philips, OSRAM and Lumiotec) are already shipping OLED panels, but these are small and very expensive, mostly used in premium lighting fixtures and as experimental design kits.

READIUS : A Rollable Display

What happen if our laptops, IPads, and all other display device become bendable or Rollable, wao.....its amazing....just imagine hows our life become simple, simpler and simplest. Research is going on to make this dream true....and after many efforts Royal Philips electronics  has been launched a rollable display device called READIUS. This become possible just due to the mechanical flexibility of organic molecules.This technology combined  ultrathin flexible OTFT-driven active-matrix backplane technology and flexible electronic ink (E-Ink) display technology. The Readius is the world’s first prototype of a functional electronic-document reader that can unroll its display to a scale larger than the device itself. With four gray levels, the monochrome, 5-inch QVGA (320 pixels x 240 pixels) display provides paper-like viewing comfort with a high contrast ratio for reading-intensive applications, including text, graphics, and electronic maps. Using a bi-stable electrophoretic display effect from E Ink Corp., the display consumes little power and is easy to read, even in bright daylight. Once the user has finished reading, the display can be rolled back into the pocket-size (100 mm x 60 mm x 20 mm) device.

                            

Technique Behind Touch Screen

Today we are using many technologies.As we go through with emerging technologies there is also the necessity to know, that how they actully work. This time i am going to discuss a very well known Technology that is TOUCH SCREEN.  As we know that concept of all present or future coming technologies has been already defined in past, same occured here.The touch generation started at early as 1971, when the first touch sensor was developed by Doctor Sam Hurst. Before going through the technique this must be know that what is the basic building block of Touch screen. Touchscreen basically comprises of a touchable surface and an electronic device on which the operation or touch gestures are to be performed. The device, on which we touch, is made of glass beneath it there are many operating layer,  which continuously scans for any touching activity happening over its surface. The touchscreen also have some sensors for specific detection methods, sometimes it detects hand or fingers only, sometimes pen or other object like stylus. The basic requirement of an device is , a conductive coating polyester layer, Adhesive spacer, Glass layer coated with transparent conductive metallic layer, Adhesive layer on the backside of the glass for mounting. Now There are three basic systems that are used to recognize a person's touch:

• Resistive
• Capacitive
• Surface acoustic wave

Resistive Touch Screen Technology: The Analog Resistive touch screen is a sensor consisting of two opposing layers, each coated with a transparent resistive material called indium tin oxide (ITO). The ITO used has a typical sheet resistivity between 100 and 500 ohms per square. The layers are separated by a pattern of very small transparent insulating dots. Silver ink bus bars (~50mW/sq) make an electrical connection to the surface of the ITO at the outside edges, spanning the desired axis of the given layer. Silver ink traces (~50mW/sq) connect the bus bars to an electromechanical connector used for interfacing to the sensor. The cover sheet has a hard, durable coating on the outer side, and a conductive coating on the inner side. When a user touches the screen, the two layers make contact in that exact spot. The change in the electrical field is noted and the coordinates of the point of contact are calculated by the computer. Once the coordinates are known, a special driver translates the touch into something that the operating system can understand, much as a computer mouse driver translates a mouse's movements into a click or a drag.