At this week’s Intersolar Show in San Francisco (July 9-12, 2012), imec presents a 20.04% large-area industrial-level silicon solar cell (certification results from Fraunhofer ISE-Callab). The cell combines a high efficiency with a low-cost industrial process.

• The 125 mm x 125 mm cell was processed at imec’s solar cell pre-pilot line.
• The cell efficiency was certified by Fraunhofer ISE-Callab.

Imec’s proprietary PERC process maximizes the conversion efficiency of the cell through structure and material optimizations while maintaining cost effective device concepts and processing. Imec’s PERC-cell is compatible with the requirements of industrial photovoltaic production. It is a large-area (125x125mm²) Cz p-type silicon cell with a simple homogeneous emitter and Ag-single screen-printed front side contacts (65µm finger width), two busbars and an adapted Al back-side metallization. This processing simplicity holds the potential for cost reduction and efficiency increase in an industrial production environment. At the moment the transfer of this process to 156x156 mm² wafers is ongoing.

The cells were processed at imec’s newly completed solar cell pre-pilot line. This pre-pilot line is equipped with state-of-the-art industrial equipment for a total value of 10 million euro and is fully capable of processing 156x156mm² size solar cell wafers. The line is operated in a flexible way with the capacity to process up to several 1,000 wafers per week.