ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION OF METHODS FOR AUTOMATED WAFER HANDLING IN HIGH VOLUME MANUFACTURING

摘要

Reduction in wafer and solar cell thicknesses today creates stricter requirements and conditions forautomated handling processes. To remain competitive in the production of silicon based photovoltaic cells, it isnecessary to optimize these processes or even develop new ones. For most of the automated processes, gripping as ahandling technique is of vital importance. Numerous factors and aspects have to be taken into consideration in orderto deliver the best productivity, i.e. short cycle times and low damage rates. Today, there is a wide variety of grippersavailable, working with different principles in these processes along the entire production line. With regards to thedevelopments mentioned above, this paper is aimed towards the analysis of the gripping forces of various state-ofthe-art grippers and prototypes during the handling process. In addition a method for the evaluation of the vibrationbehavior of substrates during a pick-and-place operation will be presented.