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2012
Conference Paper
Titel
Advances in equipment and process development for high-throughput continuous silicon epitaxy
Abstract
The ongoing challenge for cost reduction of PV modules to below 0.5 e/Wp demands for solutions combining significantly reduced material usage and consumables cost with high module efficiency. Crystalline silicon thin-film (CSiTF) solar cells can play a major role in achieving these cost targets. The most crucial process for the respective concepts, namely the cost-effective silicon deposition and epitaxy, is still not available in an industrial environment. We have developed the ProConCVD, a high-throughput prototype chemical vapour deposition (CVD) reactor for silicon epitaxy capable of a throughput more than 1000 wafers/h. In a high-volume production, this reactor will be able to process silicon layers for less than 10 ect/wafer, by this enabling breakthrough of the most competitive CSiTF solar cell concepts like Lift-off, EpiCell or Recrystallized Wafer Equivalent approaches. At present, the ProConCVD has been fully set up. This paper reports the first CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamic) simulations, as well as process test and deposition results.