Method and Process Intermediate for Electrostatic Discharge Protection in Flat Panel Imaging Detectors

A method for providing electrostatic discharge protection during fabrication processing of photodiode array panels comprising the steps of:

• conducting a TFT deposition process to first generate a plurality of FET silicon dielectric layers, at least one of which is undoped;
• capping the dielectric layers by a thin metal layer having shorting bar traces for ESD protection;
• depositing a second metal layer for the traces in the array having contact with the shorting bar traces;
• metal etching to remove the metal shorting bars leaving metal traces with all metal traces still connected through undoped FET silicon bars to continuously provide a leakage current path for static charges,
• depositing a passivation layer;
• opening vias at each pixel in the array for photodiode bottom contact and a via above each FET silicon shorting bar;
• and,
• etching the FET silicon for diodes and simultaneously removing the undoped FET silicon bars to completely isolate all traces.