In this work, we studied the effects of microwave annealing process on amorphous In-Ga-Zn-O (a-IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) and demonstrated a high performance and reliable device characteristics. The characteristic trapping time (tau) derived from stretched-exponential model was extracted to exhibit the quality improvement of a-IGZO thin film. The microwave annealing features a selective heating and potentially avoids the damage to materials neighboring the a-IGZO channel layer in TFT device structure during thermal processes, resulting in lower parasitic source to drain resistance. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.