Oxide semiconductor based deep-subthreshold operated read-out electronics for all-printed smart sensor patches

The ability to fabricate an entire smart sensor patch with read-out electronics using commercial printing techniques may have a wide range of potential applications. Although solution-processed oxide thin film transistors (TFTs) are capable of providing high mobility electron transport, resulting in large ON-state current and power output, there is hardly any literature report that uses the printed oxide TFTs at the sensor interfaces. Here, printed amorphous indium-gallium-zinc oxide (a-IGZO)-based deep-subthreshold operated TFTs that comprise signal amplifiers and analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) that can successfully digitalize the analog sensor signals up to a frequency range of 1 kHz are reported. In addition, exploiting the high current oxide TFTs, a current drive circuit placed after the ADC unit has been found useful in producing easy-to-detect visual recognition of the sensor signal at a predefined threshold crossover. Notably, the entire smart sensor patch is demonstrated to operate at a low supply voltage of ≤2 V, thereby ensuring that it can be an on-chip energy source compatible and standalone detection unit.