Novel method for crystallization of amorphous silicon for poly silicon liquid crystal displays

Flat Panel Displays (FPD) are becoming increasingly more popular for such applications as cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players, automobile navigation systems, computer monitors and televisions. The bulk of FPDs utilized in these, and other, applications are Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs). The mainstream backplane technology in these displays is based on amorphous silicon (a-Si) but for a number of reasons the industry would like to move towards polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si). The principal reasons for this push are that Thin Film Transistors (TFTs) fabricated in polycrystalline Silicon offer much high performance than TFTs fabricated in a-Si. This higher performance lends itself to smaller transistors (larger aperture pixels for brighter displays), higher switching speeds (to reduce the "image trail artifact" associated with high speed motion in the picture) and higher current carrying capability. All of these attributes also make possible the integration of the peripheral circuitry needed to drive the display electronics. This increased level of integration will allow lower manufacturing costs.