An approach to cost-effective, robust, large-area electronics using monolithic silicon

We have developed an approach to build large-area electronics from monolithic silicon integrated circuits. The method used deep reactive ion etching to structure a monolithic silicon substrate into a stretchable, two-dimensional, wired network that can be expanded to cover large planar or curved surfaces to realize high-performance, large-area, monolithic silicon electronics in a cost-effective manner. This approach has applications in sensing, smart materials, electronic textile, RFID tag and microconcentrator solar cell manufacturing. © 2007 IEEE.