Manufacture of electronic devices comprising thin-film circuits using a metal foil as a temporary support

Abstract

In manufacturing an electronic device comprising a thin-film circuit having semiconductor circuit elements (TFTs T1 & T2) processing limitations for the provision of the semiconductor film (1) and regions (5 & 6) of the semiconductor circuit elements are avoided by: (i) forming at least the thin-film semiconductive body or bodies (1) for the semiconductor circuit elements on a temporary support (10), and (ii) subsequently transferring it/them to the device substrate (20), e.g of an insulating polymer material. In a method in accordance with the invention, the temporary support is a metal foil (10) having opposite front and back faces (11 & 12) which are unattached over most of their area, the thin-film semiconductive body ( 1 ) is provided on the front face ( 11 ), and at least most of the metal foil (10) is etched away by etching into the back face (12) after the thin-film semiconductive body (1) is secured to the substrate (20). Very few processing steps are required for the provision, use and subsequent removal of such a simple temporary support (10), and it has advantageous properties when various device processing steps are carried out, e.g laser crystallisation and ion implantation. The back face (12) of the metal foil (10) may rest against a backing plate (13) and may be mounted in a frame (14) to which the backing plate (13) is secured to form a single transportable unit.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.