Flexible Electronics for Wireless Communication: A Technology and Circuit Design Review With an Application Example

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleInvitedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

There is a practical gap between conventional rigid electronics and bendable items from daily life, such as paper, tape, textiles, and the human body. This space can be bridged by flexible transistor technologies, which typically offer bendability, a light weight, ultrathin dimensions, transparency, some stretchability, suitability for large areas, and a low cost. Thanks to the continuous increase of the maximal operation frequency of flexible electronics, wireless communication is becoming one of the promising enablers for many new applications and is widely studied. For a long time, electronics have advanced in terms of speed, power consumption, integration density, and cost. In particular, reductions in feature sizes, which lead to improvements in integration density, are expected to keep slowing down, e.g. due to thermal noise constraints. This trend has long been predicted, and it has motivated the investigation of multiple alternative electronic technologies, including mechanically flexible ones.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)24 - 44
Number of pages21
JournalIEEE Microwave Magazine
Volume23
Issue number4
Publication statusPublished - 2 Mar 2022
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 85126313141
WOS 000766266300013
Mendeley d575581a-7c75-313e-9a82-02816d00bd83
unpaywall 10.1109/mmm.2021.3136684
ORCID /0000-0001-6429-0105/work/129851036
ORCID /0000-0002-4152-1203/work/165453341

Keywords

Research priority areas of TU Dresden

Keywords

  • Wireless communication, Costs, Power demand, Microwave communication, Microwave circuits, Thermal noise, Microwave transistors