SPP 1796:  High Frequency Flexible Bendable Electronics for Wireless Communication Systems (FFLexCom)

• Subject Area: Computer Science, Systems and Electrical Engineering ; Materials Science and Engineering ; Physics ; Thermal Engineering/Process Engineering
• Term: from 2015 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 255449811

In the past, electronic devices have mainly been advanced regarding performance, power consumption and costs. A further interesting property of future electronics is mechanical flexibility, which can come together with advantageous features such as bendability, stretchability, light weight, ultra-thinness, transparency, large area integration and easy recyclability. These properties can be achieved by modern TOLAE (thin film organic and large area electronics) technologies.Cut-off frequencies up to the MHz range and bending radii down to 3 mm were reported for TOLAE devices such as transistors. These recent achievements indicate a totally novel and promising research area: Wireless communication systems fully integrated on ultra-thin, bendable and flexible substrates such as plastic or even paper. In this regard, the FFlexCom priority programme wants to pave the way for the first circuits and systems for wireless communications, which are fully integrated in flexible TOLAE technologies. However, to enable functional flexible systems and sufficiently high operation frequencies for wireless communications, the speed of flexible TOLAE devices and circuits must be massively increased.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• International Connection: Finland, United Kingdom, USA

Projects

• A metal-oxide TFT technology platform for flexible RF communication systems - Phase 2 (10by10.com2) (Applicants Pfeiffer, Ullrich ;  Riedl, Thomas )
• Coordination Funds (Applicant Ellinger, Frank )
• FlexARTwo - Flexible Active Radar Backscatter Tags with Organic Electronics (Applicants Ellinger, Frank ;  Leo, Karl ;  Vossiek, Martin )
• Flexible analogue and digital circuit blocks in amorphous metal oxides (Applicant Grundmann, Marius )
• Flexible Graphene-Base Heterojunction Transistor for Several Hundred Gigahertz Operation (Applicants Bartha, Johann-Wolfgang ;  Wenger, Christian )
• Flexible high-speed thin-film transistors and circuits based on large-area grown two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (Applicants Bock, Claudia ;  Devi, Anjana )
• Flexible image sensor with adaptive high-speed wireless connectivity (Applicants Berroth, Manfred ;  Burghartz, Joachim N. ;  Hesselbarth, Jan )
• GLECS - Graphene enabled flexible high-frequency electronic circuits (Applicants Negra, Renato ;  Neumaier, Daniel )
• High-frequency modeling and characterization of printed organic crystalline transistors (Applicants Mannsfeld, Stefan ;  Schröter, Michael )
• High-speed flexible transistors and tunnel diodes and circuits based on them (Applicants Riedl, Thomas ;  Scherf, Ullrich )
• Megahertz Organic Thin-Film Transistors for Flexible Biomedical Systems (Applicants Klauk, Hagen ;  Klös, Alexander ;  Manoli, Yiannos )
• RF Transceiver Functionalities from Aggressively Scaled Metal Oxide TOLAE Technologies (Applicants Jank, Michael ;  Weigel, Robert )
• Scalable MoS2 based flexible devices and circuits for wireless communications (Applicants Lemme, Max Christian ;  Negra, Renato ;  Wang, Zhenxing )
• Semiconducting Carbon Nanotube Networks for Flexible and Stretchable High-Frequency Circuits (Applicants Scherf, Ullrich ;  Zaumseil, Jana )
• Simulation tools for high frequency flexible electronic devices (Applicant Gagliardi, Alessio )
• Solution-Processed, Air-stable, and High-Cutoff Frequency Organic Transistors for Wireless Communication Systems (Applicant Mannsfeld, Stefan )
• Wireless Indium-Gallium-Zink-Oxide TranSceivers and Devices On Mechanically-Flexible Thin-Film Substrates (W I S D O M II) (Applicant Ellinger, Frank )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr.-Ing. Frank Ellinger