The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 04, 1989
Filed:
Dec. 22, 1986
Paul M Alt, Yorktown Heights, NY (US);
IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
An array of thin film transistor (TFT) devices is provided with a conductive region, such as a strip, for temporarily coupling a floating pel eletrode of each of the plurality of TFT devices to a conductor on an underlying substrate. The conductor may be a row or column metalization line associated with an adjacent row or column of the array. The conductive strip may therefore be utilized, in conjunction with appropriate voltage potentials and test circuitry, to test each of the TFT devices prior to the final fabrication of the TFT array into a completed flat panel display. Thus, nonfunctioning or out of specification arrays may be identified at an early point in the manufacturing cycle of the display. The strip may be comprised of amorphous silicon which is illuminated during the test in order to reduce the intrinsic resistance of the strip. The strip may also be comprised of a layer of metalization, which layer is removed from the array at the completion of the test.