Patent ID: 7180156

Claim:
A thin-film structure, comprising: a substrate defined with a first device area for the first device and a second device area for the second device; and a plurality of thin film layers in the first and second device areas, at least one of the plurality of layers is a common layer to the first and second devices; wherein said common layer defines a characteristic functional thickness in at least one of the first and second devices, but not both; wherein the common layer comprises a first thin-film layer in the first device and a second thin-film layer in the second device, the thickness of the first thin-film layer alone defines a characteristic functional gap between thin-film layers immediately adjacent to the first thin-film layer, and the thickness of the second thin-film layer alone does not define a characteristic functional gap between thin-film layers immediately adjacent to the second thin-film layer; wherein the first device corresponds to at least one of a first TFT and capacitor, wherein the first thin-film layer define a gate gap thickness of the first TFT or a gap thickness of the capacitor, and the second device corresponds to a second TFT, wherein the second TFT includes a third thin-film layer in addition to the second thin-film layer to define a gate gap thickness of the second TFT, wherein the third thin-film does not contribute to the gate gap thickness of the first TFT, and wherein the third thin-film layer is common to the first device.