Patent ID: 7033872

Claim:
A method of fabricating a thin film transistor comprising the steps of: forming a gate electrode on an insulator substrate; forming a gate insulator film over the insulator substrate and the gate electrode; forming an amorphous silicon film on the gate insulator film; irradiating laser light on a surface of the amorphous silicon film to heat the amorphous silicon film, thereby forming a polycrystalline silicon film; setting energy of the laser light such that a grain size of a first portion of the polycrystalline silicon film over the insulator substrate becomes equal to or greater than a grain size of a second portion of the polycrystalline silicon film over the gate electrode; and defining a source and a drain of the thin film transistor in the first portion and defining a channel of the thin film transistor in the second portion, wherein the step of setting the energy of the laser light includes the steps of: setting a maximum energy of the laser light such that grain sizes of the drain and the source become substantially equal to a grain size of the channel; and setting a minimum energy of the laser light to obtain a grain size of the channel enough to provide a desired device characteristic of the thin film transistor.