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      schrieb am 20.10.10 23:07:18
      Beitrag Nr. 1 ()
      Eric Wesoff: October 20, 2010
      Varian Looks to Enforce Moore’s Law in Solar

      Ion implantation revolutionized semiconductor manufacturing and could do the same for solar.
      Varian Looks to Enforce Moore’s Law in Solar

      Varian Semiconductor, headquartered in Gloucester, Massachusetts, believes it can bring a Moore's Law-like momentum to solar.

      Moore's Law is the observation made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1966 that the number of transistors that can be placed on a chip can be doubled every 24 months.

      But Moore's Law doesn't really map to solar. Moore's Law is about getting small. With solar, shrinkage doesn't work. Shrinking a solar cell reduces the surface area that is exposed to the sun, which reduces the amount of power it can generate. In the solar space, at least, smaller is the enemy of better.

      "This is not the chip industry. The rate of change is completely different," said Joseph Laia, CEO of MiaSolé. "I don't have Moore's Law. [...] I don't have shrink."

      Photovoltaics do seem to be based on a relationship between volume production and cost. It's said that for every doubling in solar volume, there is a twenty percent reduction in cost. But Rubin's Conundrum posits that the relationship is observed but not causal. The cost reduction is not due to volume but to other factors -- usually technology advancements required to become or stay competitive. It is those “other factors” that Varian hopes to address, by giving solar cell engineers new options for cell development and production.

      Ion Implantation to the Rescue

      Varian supplies ion implantation equipment to most of the major semiconductor manufacturers in the United States, Europe and Asia. Revenue in the firm's most recent quarter was $227.7 million.

      According to Jim Mullin, the Vice President and General Manager of Varian's solar group, 90 percent of crystalline silicon cells are the same product made on the same equipment. Varian is looking at a way to fundamentally change the c-Si cell itself.

      Mullin suggests that the silicon solar cell "is essentiality just a diode" with a semiconductor junction. And the quality of that junction determines the quality of the cell.

      Twenty-five years ago, most semiconductor junctions were made with a diffusion process. But ion implantation provides a higher quality junction and because of that, the semiconductor industry transitioned to ion implantation long ago. It's part of what has enabled Moore's Law to flourish and has "almost wholesale replaced diffusion furnaces" in semiconductor manufacturing today.

      According to Mullin, solar cell production is not complex -- it's basically a six-step process. The current diffusion process is a "blanket process" and the dopant for p-type cells, phosphorous, diffuses into both sides of the cell, although it's only needed on one side. The solar industry either has to mask one side or remove the dopant on the other side.

      Contrast this to the one-sided implant process.

      Diffusion is also a high-temperature process which creates a glass layer that has to be removed after the process is complete. Implantation is not a high-temperature process, so there's no need to remove glass.

      Paul Sullivan, Varian's Vice President of Business Development, said, "We can remove two of the six steps and at the same time improve the efficiency of the cell." Sullivan also claimed that eliminating some of the steps reduces handling requirements, which in turn improves yield and throughput. "We're saying, get rid of the diffusion process, get rid of wet bench glass removal and get rid of the edge isolation step."

      Junction quality depends on dopant uniformity. In the diffusion process, uniformity of the junction is three to ten times looser than the uniformity of the implant process, according to Varian. This means that the binning distribution in implant-process solar cells is much tighter. Sullivan claimed that this could translate to $3 million more revenue on a $100 million production line.

      So ion implantation has the potential for higher efficiency, lower cost and improved throughput.

      Advanced Semiconductor Processes

      Today, Varian can do blanket emitters with implanted phosphorous as well as patterned phosphorous emitters. Future roadmap products include boron implantation and patterned boron with potential cell efficiencies approaching 23 percent.

      The selective emitter design uses a lightly doped emitter without trading off with contact resistance. Implantation is done through a mask to create a heavily doped region below the "fingers" to enable selective emitter structures.

      The solar team is spending a lot of time in China and sees itself competing with Suntech's Pluto process and other technologies going after higher efficiency crystalline silicon. The firm shipped its first solar production tool a few weeks ago after shipping many R&D tools to production sites around the world.

      Varian has shipped thousands of semiconductor tools that are currently in the field running 365 days per year. The team I spoke with prided itself on understanding ramp-up and production. Sullivan said, "Scaling is the thing we do well."

      The company envisions 18-month, semiconductor-type process improvement cycles finally reaching solar and bringing at least a hint of Moore's law to this industry.
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      schrieb am 20.10.10 23:13:47
      Beitrag Nr. 2 ()
      Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates to Introduce the Solion(TM) Blue Implant Process at vTech Technical Seminar in Valencia, Spain

      GLOUCESTER, MA, Sep 02, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) --

      New information about how ion implant technology can improve solar cell efficiency while reducing manufacturing costs will be presented at Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates' (NASDAQ: VSEA) vTech technical seminar, held in conjunction with next week's European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC) in Valencia, Spain. Varian is inviting cell manufacturers and technology partners to attend the vTech event, which is being held at a venue near the Feria Valencia Exhibition Center on Tuesday, Sept. 7.

      The main focus of this vTech, the second of the summer, will be to review cell efficiency and manufacturing data gathered by select customers and partners utilizing Varian's Solion Blue process. Solion Blue is designed to produce high efficiency P-type mono-crystalline solar cells utilizing the proprietary patterned implant technology of Varian's Solion ion implant platform. Solion Blue fully exploits all the inherent advantages of ion implant including high throughput, high precision and superior junction formation.

      The Solion Blue process reduces manufacturing costs and increases cell efficiency by increasing the blue-light response of the solar cell and eliminating the so called "dead zone" from the cell surface. By using Varian's Precision Patterned Implant (PPI) technology, contact regions on the cell surface can be doped to 50 ohms/sq while the field is doped more lightly at 80 ohms/sq. The lighter-doped field region will have inherently better blue response than cells utilizing blanket doping with phosphorous oxychloride (POCl3). Typically, average conversion efficiencies of a standard POCl3 process will increase to greater than 18.5% by implementing Solion Blue. Current champion data has shown cell efficiencies approaching 19%.

      By eliminating the use of POCl3, Solion Blue users will achieve a simplified process flow that is easy to integrate into existing manufacturing lines. Edge-isolation process steps are eliminated, and the phosphor-silicate glass surface passivation layer created by the POCl3 process is replaced by a superior thermal oxide layer, further increasing efficiency.

      Jim Mullin, GM of Varian's Solar Products group said, "The vTech at Valencia will be the first public presentation of Solion Blue customer data. We are very excited to provide proof of how our groundbreaking process technology increases cell efficiency and decreases manufacturing costs." Added Mullin, "Customer response to our Solion announcement at Intersolar earlier this year has been tremendous. As a result, we are expanding our solar cell manufacturing capability at our facility in Gloucester, Mass., to keep up with demo demand."

      Those interested in attending the vTech conference in Valencia are invited to email james.kawski@vsea.com to request a reservation.
      Avatar
      schrieb am 10.04.11 12:50:15
      Beitrag Nr. 3 ()
      15.02.2011 14:33
      Suniva Collaborating with Varian Semiconductor on Advanced N-Type Solar Cell Using Boron Implantation


      Suniva Targets 20 Percent Efficiency for Screen-Printed Solar Cells on N-Type Wafer

      Suniva, Inc., a U.S. manufacturer of high-efficiency monocrystalline silicon solar cells and modules, today announced that it is working with Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates (NASDAQ: VSEA) to use ion implantation of boron in the manufacture of solar cells. This collaboration will enable Suniva to use fewer processing steps in the mass production of its next generation n-type cell product, ARTisun Star. ARTisun Star is scheduled for production in the first quarter of 2012 with targeted cell efficiencies that will approach 20 percent.

      Based on years of development collaboration with Varian Semiconductor, Suniva announced last week that it is using ion implantation of phosphorous on p-type wafers to achieve 19 percent efficiency on its second generation ARTisun Select cells. Suniva and Varian expanded their development partnership in February 2010 to focus on the utilization of n-type wafers and boron implantation. The use of n-type wafers in the third generation ARTisun Star cells completely eliminates Light Induced Degradation (LID) and provides a higher lifetime material, which is consistent with Suniva's objective to be the leader in high-efficiency, low-cost cell manufacturing.

      Leveraging both boron and phosphorous implantation, Suniva has already produced 19.1 percent efficient n-type solar cells on 156 mm production wafers, which have been certified by Fraunhoffer. In addition, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has certified 20+ percent efficiencies on several laboratory-scale cells that utilize Suniva's advanced designs for ARTisun Star.

      "Suniva's ability to already achieve verified conversion efficiencies of over 19 percent on 156 mm size n-type production wafers using low-cost techniques, such as conventional screen printing of metal contacts and use of an ion implanted uniform emitter and back-surface field, is unrivaled; it is a testament to the company's commitment to solar cell research and development," said Dr. Ajeet Rohatgi, Suniva founder and CTO. "I fully expect Suniva will have even higher solar cell efficiencies verified in the near future as we execute on our clear development roadmap to eventually achieve 22 percent conversion efficiency."

      "Ion implantation is an enabling technology for advancing the solar industry roadmap towards grid parity. Precise single-sided doping control, species flexibility and process simplification are key requirements for cost-effective, high-efficiency cell designs," said Jim Mullin, VP/GM of the Solar Business Unit at Varian.

      Suniva believes it is the only manufacturer of high-efficiency silicon solar cells that has achieved certified conversion efficiencies of more than 19 percent on 156 mm n-type wafers using low-cost techniques, including conventional screen printing and ion implantation of both a boron homogeneous emitter and a phosphorus back-surface field. This efficiency milestone was made possible through processes and intellectual property initiated by Dr. Rohatgi and chief scientist Dr. Dan Meier, and further developed in the company's R&D lab. Suniva's collaboration with Varian Semiconductor on ion implantation equipment will continue to contribute to this success and to the success of Suniva's mission to develop and manufacture cells and modules that are sensibly balanced between low-cost and high-efficiency - eventually approaching the cost of electricity produced by fossil fuels.

      "Our broad and deep partnership with Suniva, extending over multiple years, has yielded a process and equipment solution for volume manufacturing of high-efficiency n-type cells with low-cost, high-yield and exceptional binning," said Dr. Paul Sullivan, VP of business development at Varian. "The combination of boron implantation and precise patterned doping are critical steps in advancing the solar roadmap."
      Avatar
      schrieb am 05.05.11 11:56:16
      Beitrag Nr. 4 ()
      kurzes Vergnügen...:

      Applied Materials to Acquire Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates
      Deal would extend Applied's leadership in chip equipment

      Combination better able to help customers solve increasing chip complexity, transistor scaling and 3-D design challenges

      Live conference call and webcast today at 5:30 a.m. PDT, 8:30 a.m. EDT


      Santa Clara, Calif. and Gloucester, Mass. May 4, 2011 - Applied Materials, Inc. ("Applied") (Nasdaq: AMAT) and Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, Inc. ("Varian") (Nasdaq: VSEA) today announced the signing of a definitive merger agreement under which Applied will acquire Varian for $63 per share in cash for a total price of approximately $4.9 billion on a fully-diluted basis. The price represents a 55 percent premium to yesterday's closing price, or a 38 percent premium to Varian's 30 day average closing price. Varian is the leading supplier of ion implantation equipment used by chip makers around the world. Following the close of the transaction, Varian will operate as a business unit of Applied's Silicon Systems Group and continue to be based in Gloucester, Mass. The transaction is expected to be accretive to Applied's earnings on a non-GAAP basis in the first year.

      The acquisition will extend Applied's leadership in wafer fabrication equipment (WFE) with the addition of the technology leader in ion implantation - a critical step in integrated circuit manufacturing. Varian's ion implant products complement Applied's Silicon Systems Group's successful suite of products in the areas of transistor, interconnect, wafer level packaging and patterning. The combined company will provide customers a broad product portfolio for transistor formation, enabling the manufacture of higher performance chips particularly for mobile applications with faster speeds and longer battery life. In addition, Varian's technology has strong potential to extend into adjacent markets, including solar, display and light emitting diodes.

      "Varian is a great fit for our strategy to profitably grow share in our core semiconductor business with best-in-class technology and talent," said Mike Splinter, chairman and chief executive officer of Applied. "The pace of product innovation is accelerating, requiring devices that are more mobile, more connected and more personalized. These global trends are driving our customers to find new solutions for smaller transistors and faster and higher performance chips, while pushing the boundaries of innovation. Combined, Applied and Varian will be better positioned to help our customers solve these complex challenges and deliver long-term value to shareholders."

      "We believe the opportunity is very attractive for Varian's customers, employees and shareholders," said Varian's chief executive officer Gary Dickerson. "In addition to our combined strengths in the semiconductor space, Applied's proven capability to extend its technology to adjacent markets like solar and display can help unlock the tremendous potential of ion implantation in these markets."

      "Trends in chip complexity, transistor scaling and 3-D design are driving growth in the ion implantation market. Applied's broad capability in semiconductor equipment and Varian's ion implant expertise will allow us to work more closely with our customers on integrated process solutions at the transistor level," said Dr. Randhir Thakur, executive vice president and general manager of Applied's Silicon Systems Group. "We are excited to welcome Varian's highly talented team with a history of successful innovation, execution and customer focus."

      The merger received unanimous approval by the Boards of Directors of both companies. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Varian shareholders will receive $63 in cash for each share of Varian stock they hold at the time of closing. The closing of the acquisition is subject to customary conditions, including approval by Varian's shareholders and review by U.S. and international regulators.

      Applied expects to fund the transaction with a combination of existing cash balances and debt. Applied has secured a commitment for a $2 billion, one-year senior bridge loan facility and plans to arrange for long-term debt financing. Applied also has in place an existing, undrawn $1 billion revolving credit facility. Additional financing arrangements are expected to include replacement of the existing credit facility with a new four-year, $1.5 billion revolving credit facility. Applied remains committed to a strong investment grade capital structure.


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