Chip-by-chip configurable interconnection using digital printing techniques

Abstract

Printed electronics technologies add new fabrication concepts to the classical set of microelectronic processes. Among these, the use of digital printing techniques such as inkjet permits the deposition of materials on top of preexisting substrates without any mask. This allows individual personalization of electronic circuits. Different proposals have been made to make use of such a property: (1) wiring new metallic layers on top of circuits to build programmable logic array-like circuits, (2) programming OTP ROM like memories, and (3) building inkjet-configurable gate arrays. The capability of building an individual circuit with technological steps simpler than photolithographic ones opens a concept similar to the successful field programmable gate array. Although nowadays the process resolution is still low, it can quickly evolve to higher wiring densities and therefore permit a greater level of transistor integration. In this paper, we propose a new structure to realize the connections only by deposition of conductive dots oriented to optimize the area needed to implement the drop-on-demand (DoD) wiring at circuit level. One important feature of this structure is that it minimizes the amount of printed material required for the connection thereby reducing failures often seen with DoD printing techniques for conductive lines. These structures have been validated by two different DoD technologies: inkjet and superfine jet, and have been compared to mask-based photolithography technology with promising results.