Evaluation of Handling Stresses Applied to EFG Silicon Wafer using a Bernoulli Gripper

Author

Brun, Xavier F. ; Melkote, Shreyes N.

Author_Institution

George W. Woodruff Sch. of Mech. Eng., Georgia Inst. of Technol., Atlanta, GA

Volume

2

fYear

2006

fDate

38838

Firstpage

1346

Lastpage

1349

Abstract

The Manufacturing Research Center at Georgia Tech is addressing both fundamental and practical issues related to the handling of polycrystalline silicon wafers used in the manufacture of photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules. As Bernoulli grippers are widely used in the PV industry for handling silicon wafers, this paper focuses on the study of such grippers. The objective of this work is to develop an understanding of the influence of gripper variables and silicon wafer characteristics on wafer deformation and stresses in order to prevent wafer breakage and thereby improve yield. A finite element model has been developed to predict handling stresses based on measured wafer deformation profiles

Keywords

deformation; finite element analysis; grippers; photovoltaic cells; silicon; stress analysis; Bernoulli gripper; Georgia Tech; Manufacturing Research Center; PV industry; PV modules; Si; edge-defined film-fed growth silicon wafer; finite element model; handling stresses; photovoltaic cells manufacturing; polycrystalline silicon wafers; wafer breakage prevention; wafer deformation; wafer stresses; Deformable models; Finite element methods; Grippers; Manufacturing industries; Photovoltaic systems; Predictive models; Semiconductor device modeling; Silicon; Solar power generation; Stress;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, Conference Record of the 2006 IEEE 4th World Conference on

Conference_Location

Waikoloa, HI

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0017-1

Electronic_ISBN

1-4244-0017-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WCPEC.2006.279680

Filename

4059894