Surpassing traditional Statistical Process Control methods, it detects and interprets complex process deviations or faults that cannot be directly discerned. Image: AST Aurora Solar Technologies has introduced the ‘Veritas Insight’, a new product that is designed to provide a fully integrated quality control system for high-efficiency solar cells such as PERC (Passivated Emitter Rear Cell). Problem There are a number of challenges facing cell manufacturers in characterizing and controlling production variation of high-efficiency solar cells. These variations cause yield limitations and profit loss, and can introduce excess warranty liabilities, due to poor electrical performance and other variances in finished cells. The effects can also be seen in the often-lengthy time it takes to bring new high-efficiency production lines up to speed, resulting in many weeks of suboptimal performance. Manufacturers therefore need to make use of the powerful information embedded within the enormous quantity of production data being generated as the industry scales to hundreds of gigawatts of annual production and make actionable information to boost manufacturing yield and detect hidden process behaviour that affects product quality. Solution Leveraging extensive research and experience with actual solar cell production line variance and their root causes, Veritas Insight directly addresses these problems. Surpassing traditional Statistical Process Control methods, it detects and interprets complex process deviations or faults that cannot be directly discerned, but cause protracted declines in average efficiency or costly quality issues in the field. It reveals causal relationships between finished cell electrical variations and controllable upstream fabrication process variations in real-time. This allows production personnel to see, understand and manage trade-offs and fluctuations as these occur in production. Veritas Insight provides these benefits with end-of-line cell performance alone or in combination with other production line measurements. Applications Fully integrated quality control system for high-efficiency solar cells such as PERC, bifacial, heterojunction (HJ) and other cell technologies. Platform Veritas Insight provides end-of-line cell analysis or in combination with other production line measurements. Availability Veritas Insight will be available starting in April 2018. Tags: aurora solar technologies, c-si manufacturing, solar cell, perc, ibc solar cell, heterojunction solar cell, bifacial
Aurora Solar Technologies, the Californian renewable tech specialist, has developed a system to improve the management and quality of solar cell production. The company is working with its partners in China on developing an innovative new manufacturing process for silicon wafers, which will be used by Chinese manufacturers to produce their own solar cells. It draws on the company's extensive experience in cell production. By highlighting the causes of such problems, the new system enables staff to manage the production process more effectively and make necessary adjustments to maintain quality.