$299K Grant to RIT Supports Flat-Panel Display Development

Rochester Institute of Technology is receiving a $299,450 grant from the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research for a project to enhance flat-panel displays—the thin, lightweight display screens increasingly used with laptop computers, desktop computers and television sets to reduce glare and save space.

The funding is part of more than $12.2 million in state, industry and university support to 11 universities recently announced by Gov. George Pataki to foster moving high-tech product innovations from labs to market.

RIT is teaming with Corning Inc. in the development of high-performance silicon-on-glass substrate material for applications in flat-panel display products. Karl Hirschman, the Micron Technology Professor of Microelectronic Engineering in RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering, is leading a group of RIT students in the development of a low-temperature process for the fabrication of high-performance thin-film transistors on a new glass substrate material.

“We’re very excited to be working on this project and realize significant improvements in material performance,” says Hirschman, who also directs RIT’s Semiconductor & Microsystems Fabrication Laboratory. “We recognize this as a unique opportunity to have a major impact on the development of advanced display products.”

The grant to RIT was made through NYSTAR’s Technology Transfer Incentive Program.