News Article
Applied Materials Announces New Tool Framework
AMAT Baccini claims to meet all of customers needs in one package
In the lead up to next week's EUPVSEC, Applied Materials has announced their latest offerings which takes the core of Baccini's advanced screen printing that AMAT acquired and adds it to a range of technologies from the AMAT stable to develop what is being called an industry first manufacturing tool based on a modular concept allowing future expansion for either scale or technology advances.
The new tool is called Applied Baccini Pegaso and is a solar photovoltaic (PV) cell manufacturing platform. The Pegaso platform fabricates electrical circuits on both sides of a solar cell, a process that includes multiple screen-printed metallization steps, metrology and sorting. The main goal of the Pegaso system is to deliver high yield and cell output at the lowest overall cost-per-watt of any cell manufacturing system available. To this end the new tool set can be configured to individual needs and can optimise cost or performance for the manufacturer.
Key to the Pegaso platform's performance are its "smart" technologies that bring a level of precision and control to the cell manufacturing process that the company stated has being lacking in the PV arena.. The system's adaptive wafer-handling mechanism, based on planar motor technology, shuttles wafers between two independent tracks to optimize wafer output and enable continued operation during maintenance. The Pegaso-XP dual print head incorporates a closed-loop metrology system that adjusts printing parameters "on-the-fly" from wafer to wafer to achieve near micron-level accuracy and repeatability for fully optimized cell performance.
"The next wave of cost-per-watt reduction in the solar PV industry will be achieved through major changes in cell technology and manufacturing sophistication to simultaneously improve efficiency and factory output," said Dr. Mark Pinto, executive vice president and general manager of Applied's Energy and Environmental Solutions Group.
In a video overview of the new product Pinto points out that the current improvements in cell and module are reaching a tipping point when extra improvements will need to be done with an understanding of the interactions between process steps. Production of solar cells is becoming more complex with added steps and companies need to ensure that added steps do not decrease yield either specifically or cumulatively. An interesting statistic the company is claiming is almost zero (0.85%) breakages on the production line.
With analysts suggesting that consolidation will continue and companies are choosing cheapest cost or highest performance, AMAT claim that Pegaso can fit both needs. Such claims, while impressive, require field experience to be proven. AMAT has obviously being working on this project for a while and has had tools in the field and in action. One place that has definitely made use of the technology is Gintech Energy in Taiwan
"We are very impressed with Applied's Baccini Pegaso technology. The system is producing the highest efficiency cells with the lowest breaking ratio of any cell line in our facility, at high throughput and with consistently high yield," said Dr. Wen-Whe Pan, president of Gintech Energy Corporation. "Our customers are also very pleased with the production samples we've produced using the Applied Pegaso system and we're looking forward to continuing our partnership with Applied into the future." Gintech Energy Corporation, located in Hsinchu Science Park.
"We're honoured that a technology leader such as Gintech Energy has chosen Applied's Baccini Pegaso technology to accelerate its cell efficiency roadmap," Said Pinto.
