L R AS Published on Wednesday 25 May 2016 - n° 148 - Categories:the manufacturers
Multi-crystalline wafers will remain competitive over the next five years using black silicon technology
Multi-crystalline wafers will remain competitive over the next five years using black silicon technology that increases the energy conversion rate, according to GCL Poly Energy's technical director.
This involves the use of larger furnaces and diamond saws that reduce the cost of producing the wafers. The conversion rate will be increased by the use of technologies adapted to black silicon such as dry reactive ion etching (RIE) which brings 0.4% to 0.6% more yield, or metal-catalyzed chemical wet etching (MCCE) which increases it by 0.2% to 0.4%. Add to this the increased ingot and wafer size, production costs can be reduced by 17% if crystallisation is achieved by switching from a G5 to a G6 furnace, and by 12% by using a G7 furnace instead of a G6 furnace. The increase is greater between G5 and G6 than between G6 and G7 because some of the cutting equipment has to be changed when switching to the G7 furnace
The use of diamond saws to cut ingots also reduces production costs compared to traditional methods.
In the second half of 2016, GCL Poly Energy will expand its production to mono-silicon wafers by setting up a capacity of 1 GWp.
Digitimes of 24 May.
