All-Silicon Microdisplay Using Efficient Hot-Carrier Electroluminescence in Standard 0.18<i>μ</i>m CMOS Technology

Abstract

All-CMOS monolithic microdisplay technologies have been attracting attention due to their direct integration of light-emitting pixel arrays and driving circuits on a single silicon substrate. Improvements to optical power efficiency have been a hot spot for all-silicon microdisplay technologies. MOS-like gate-control structure avalanche-mode light-emitting diodes (AMLEDs) that employ hot-carrier electroluminescence to produce light emission are used to enhance the optical power efficiency of pixel units. A semi-active matrix mode is used to reduce the power consumption of driver circuits. A 100×100 pixel array with an all-CMOS monolithic microdisplay system is demonstrated using standard 0.18μm CMOS technology. The optical emission power and the breakdown voltage of the proposed AMLEDs are increased by 139.2% and reduced by more than 67%, respectively. The optical-power efficiency is 5.98×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-7</sup> which is comparable to the best reported so far in all-CMOS monolithic microdisplay chip. With its significant optical-power efficiency, the proposed microdisplay technology has broad application prospects in near-to-eye display and head mounted displays (HMDs).