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A novel ultrathin elevated channel thin-film transistor (UT-ECTFT) made using low-temperature poly-Si is proposed. The structure has an ultrathin channel region (300 /spl Aring/) and a thick drain/source region. The thin channel is connected to the heavily doped drain/source through a lightly doped overlapped region. The lightly doped overlapped region provides an effective way to spread out the electric field at the drain, thereby reducing significantly the lateral electric field there at high drain bias. Thus, the UT-ECTFT exhibits excellent current saturation characteristics even at high bias (V/sub ds/=30 V, V/sub gs/=20 V). Moreover, the UT-ECTFT has more than two times increase in on-state current and 3.5 times reduction in off-state current compared to conventional thick channel TFT's.