Solar-cell fab supply chain shines at Semicon West

By Tom Cheyney, Small Times Senior Contributing Editor

A growing number of semiconductor equipment, subsystems, and materials suppliers marketed their expertise in the burgeoning solar-cell/photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing sector at this year’s Semicon West trade show, held July 16 – 19, 2007 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Show producer SEMI estimated that more than 160 exhibiting companies showcased offerings in the PV space, while several well-attended keynote and technical presentations provided perspectives on various parts of the solar-cell and module fabrication supply chain.

The combined PV equipment and materials sector generated $3.7 billion in 2006, with the polysilicon-driven materials side accounting for most of the total, according to SEMI. By 2010, the association forecasts the overall market will top $10 billion, with thin-film tools grabbing an increasing share of the pie.

Although wafer-based crystalline-silicon (c-Si) solar cells and modules make up 90 – 95% of the current market, amorphous silicon (a-Si), CdTe (cadmium telluride), and other thin-film-based PV approaches are projected to grow at twice the rate of the c-Si sector. Thin-film advocates say that while c-Si cells show better power efficiency, their technologies can dramatically reduce production costs and ultimately module prices, thereby offering the best hope for reaching grid parity — the goal of solar power matching or bettering the per-watt cost of conventional energy utilities.

One thin-film equipment company driving down cell and module costs is Oerlikon Solar. Executive vice president Hans Braendle said that the company delivered two of its turnkey production toolsets to ersol Thin Film in December 2006. The ersol fab is ramping and is “close to producing a-Si modules” that have already reached “better than 6.5% cell efficiency.” With its installed base of 80 systems expected to jump past 100 soon, an “aggressive factory capacity ramp” under way, and its second-generation “micromorph” technology rolling out, Braendle is bullish on Oerlikon’s prospects: “Grid parity without subsidies is within reach with our technology.”

Subsystem supplier Advanced Energy has seen escalating demand in its PV business, both in the mainstream crystalline-Si sector and the fast-growing thin-film space. “We’re involved at the fundamental level in a half-dozen process steps,” said Todd Miklos, vice president of marketing. Processes include deposition of antireflective film coatings, and metal and glass pretreatment of the front and back contacts. The company’s RF/DC power-supply and ultrapure-gas-delivery units play enabling roles in enhancing tool and production-line throughput and achieving better uniformity across the entire surface area of large substrates—a key to producing more efficient cells and modules, he explained.

Another subsystem player, newly rebranded Edwards (formerly BOC Edwards), is busy “aligning roadmaps with our solar customers, optimizing our LCD and semiconductor experience… and leveraging our global support network to refocus on solar,” according to Katherine Hutchison, business development manager. She cited brisk business for the company’s turbopumps, which “have the highest speed per inlet flange size,” in PVD and other processes. New PV-related products set to launch this year include a power-efficient turbopump with the lowest overall cost of ownership, and a loadlock with the fastest pump-down rate and best power consumption specs on the market, Hutchison noted.

Addressing an overflow crowd at one of SEMI’s TechXpot miniconferences, Charlie Gay, vice president and general manager of Applied Materials‘ solar business group, spoke about the challenges of going to gigawatt-scale solar manufacturing. Citing “a whole new world of tools that make cost reductions possible,” he noted how as “scale expands, the costs come down.” His statistics showed that for every cumulative doubling of solar manufacturing capacity, there has been a 20% cost reduction historically. The “new universe of tools,” once seen as oversized, “are now in the sweet spot for management to build fab lines up” to the gigawatt level.

Drawing on Applied’s own recent experience in the PV manufacturing arena, he encouraged the wafer fab equipment industry to increase its participation in the market space, since those companies “can compress the learning time” of advanced solar-cell fabrication, be it traditional silicon or thin film. “Will new technologies obsolete crystalline silicon technologies?” Gay asked. “No, there are roadmaps for cost efficiency for all PV types. All of them have a good capability for hitting grid parity.”

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