Triphenylene derivatives are the most well-known representatives of discotic liquid crystals forming columnar mesophases. In this work, the authors report on the design and synthesis of new semiconducting materials, based on a triphenylene core, those are solution processable. These molecules have a good solubility and are applicable to soluble processing for organic field-effect transistor (OFET). Their thermal stabilities and dynamic behaviors are suitable for OFET device fabrication. In comparison with all of previous reported triphenylenes derivatives, these molecules have lower bandgap energies. As far as we know, there are few reports on the application of pi-extended triphenylene systems to OFET. The semiconducting properties of these molecules were quite promising for further designs of pi-extended triphenylene derivatives. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.