YIELDMANAGEMENT
are offering manufacturers process control
normally reserved for a mature industry.
The PV industry has been around for decades
since TI first had solar calculators. What we see in
the last 5-7 years is a tremendous increase in the
production of PV wafers and with the slowing
economy an increasing competition. Discover
Solar is positioned very well to improve the
competitiveness of factories that have the foresight
to install it. It will enable competition on cost as
well as improvements in the Cpk of the
Issue I 2009
manufacturing process. This overall is wonderful
for the industry as a whole.
We believe this is the correct entry point for this
An important item to note is Discover Solar can type of software, the logical next step. Many of the
offer value even if equipment tracking is limited or engineers and technicians moving to the solar
non-existent. There is much information that can industry have come from industries such as
-pv-management.com be derived from cell test data alone. semiconductor. These individuals are used to
having these analytical capabilities. We believe
.solar
they will help adopt these methodologies into the
www
solar industry.
With such software PV manufacturers should be
24
able to maintain tracking and checks on materials
as well as tools and process. Will manufacturers
be able to identify specific material issues? How What impact will the data collection and resulting
would this be achieved and how accurate would awareness have on tool manufacturers and their
the results be? relationship with their customers?
The manufacturers will be able to identify specific At this point in time the tool manufacturers do not
material issues. The key to identifying these issues have a high level of detail on the performance of
is access to the tracking information. A common their tools as related to cell performance. Data
scenario in the industry is to separate bad cell data collection and analysis should help the tool
into two categories; process related or bad manufacturers.
material. Assuming the data provides a link
between the bad cells with material ID we can Many of the turnkey companies should find this
analyse the data to separate these problems. For capability helpful in the installation and ramping of
example, a cell test parameter may indicate a their lines.
potential problem at diffusion or wafer material.
Using Discover Solar one can analyse this group
of cells to determine if all the bad cells went
through one particular diffusion tube. If the bad Who will benefit most from the introduction of such
cells can be shown to go through several different yeild management software?
tubes then the likely source is the wafer material.
Isolating who will benefit the most would be
What impact on the PV industry do you think there difficult. Manufacturing is a synergy between the
will be by introducing such high level software into manufacturer, tool vendor, and material suppliers.
the industry at this early stage?
At any given time a drop in cell performance could
be process, tool, or material related. Resolving
these issues will require some innovation from all
In semiconductor manufacturing it was introduced groups. Access to tool and material specific data
either when or after it was truly needed. Here you should help drive this innovation.
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