Industrial Challenges For Thin Wafer Manufacturing

Because of limited supply of Silicon, there has been an industry-driven requirement for reduction of material consumption per Wp of solar power. As a consequence, the thickness of wafers has been reduced, which in turn has introduced new challenges for the industry. During the wafer manufacturing cycle, the wafers are exposed to mechanical loads caused by sawing, manual handling, liquid jets, transport systems and pick and place equipment. The introduction of thinner wafers has reinforced the requirements for reducing these mechanical loads, in order not to increase the breakage and defect rates accordingly. The research has aimed at modeling and measuring the stresses on the wafers in the various process steps. This provides a tool for obtaining an optimal tuning of the process-parameters. In addition, this work is essential for providing specifications of better and more gentle wafer-handling technologies in the future