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There is a need for contactless readable electronic barcodes for identification and product tagging. The applications range from electronic article surveillance, identification tags for retail, anti counterfeit devices to access control, airline luggage tracking and recycling. Present transponders made with regular ICs are too expensive. A cost price reduction by an order of magnitude is required. Polymers are associated with low-cost due to their ease of processing. Recently, the first all-polymer integrated circuits and functional transponders have been realised. Apart from low-cost they offer considerable environmental advantages. The target of this 2 year research project is to design and control a manufacturing process for the polymeric semiconductor, and to develop an industrial process technology for flexible polymeric integrated circuits. This project will open the new emerging field of polymer electronics.

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     Plastronix project activity

A variety of synthetic routes for the semiconductor, precursor PTV, will be investigated. The nature of leaving groups and conversion conditions will be deliberately varied in order to improve the shelf lifetime of the final polymeric ICs. The chemical and physical composition of the polymers will be analysed and the electrical transport and lifetime will be optimised. Selection criteria for upscaling will be specified and a manufacturing process will be designed and realised.

For the polymer IC technology, the process window of lithographically patterned thin PANI films will be improved by varying the solvent. Also, the operational lifetime of polymer ICs will be improved. Photochemical via’s will be realised by patterning the gate dielectric. Testing of discrete devices will allow investigation of scaling, contact resistances and short channel effects. Characterisation of the integrated circuits on bit rate and parasitic effects will allow testing of compact models, and of estimation of the final performance. The switching speed will be improved by the use of the optimised mobility of the semiconductor and by scaling down the lateral dimensions. The business potential of polymer electronics will be assessed, a cost-price model and a standardisation proposal will be developed, and a symposium with end-users will be organised.

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