Processing of crystalline silicon solar cells in high throughput production tools

The contribution of breakage-induced yield losses in solar cell and module manufacturing costs is well understood. Breakage data and information about the solutions implemented by cell manufacturers have a proprietary nature and are much less well known. The emergence of equipment manufacturers serving many customers is enabling solutions that are of common interest to the industry to become better known. In this paper we discuss the cell handling requirements of crystalline silicon solar cell manufacturers and present data obtained with two machines designed and manufactured by the NPC Group and used in cell testing and module assembly operations. On this basis, we propose topics where industry collaboration with the research community could result in advantages for all cell manufacturers.