InnoLas Systems introduces an in-house designed cell handling system for its ILS TT laser machines. The new system is tailor-made to suit the ILS TT high volume production capacity and can achieve a throughput of up to 3,600 wafers per hour.
An efficient manufacturing process in the production of crystalline solar cells also depends on the fast and safe handling of the cells. Commercial off-the-shelf solutions often represent a compromise between speed, accuracy, cost, and safe, break free transport. InnoLas Systems thus decided to design a handling unit that is tailored to the ILS TT laser machines. It employs proven transport and sorting mechanisms, built from only the highest quality parts. A frame construction with high structural rigidity, high torque motors and drives, precision bearings, and a motion control software developed by InnoLas ensure fast and precise transport of the wafers with smooth acceleration/deceleration.
Customer feedback played a vital role in the design process, ensuring that the fully automatic handling meets the real world requirements of the photovoltaics industry.
All components were extensively tested at the InnoLas Systems application lab to ensure perfect integration. The new fully automatic handling unit guarantees efficient loading and unloading of the laser station for processes such as selective emitter, MWT, contact opening (PERC), or laser fired contacts. The design combines high acceleration and transport speed with gentle handling of the wafers to minimize stress and avoid damage. The robust, yet sophisticated unit can transport up to one wafer per second for high volume production environments.
Based on a single belt design and a multiple carrier buffer the system reduces the units footprint, saving valuable floorspace. It also increases the robustness of the system and thus reduces maintenance cost and downtime.
The new handling system has already been installed successfully at three different customers in 24/7 production in combination with InnoLas ILS TT laser machines.
Richard Grundmüller, CEO InnoLas: "In the photovoltaics industry we have installed laser systems for a production capacity of +1.5 GW/year. This gives us a very good idea of what the market wants and what is needed for efficient production processes. We decided to design a handling system without any ‘revolutionary' gimmicks and concentrated on proven German quality engineering. The resulting handling unit is a perfect match for our laser systems for PERC, selective emitter technology, laser edge isolation, MWT drilling and pad isolation, laser fired contacts, and IBC cell processing."
