Ingot & Wafer Production
Manufacturing process
from Poly Silicium to Wafer
Confidential
for internal use only
Silicon & Wafer
2. Ingot & Wafer Production Process
Video: 1.1_Solarmaus30052004.wmv
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Ingot & Wafer Line
Process Flow Overview (multi/mono-like)
Turnkey Solution
Ingot Line Brick Line Wafer Line
Ingot
Squaring
Brick
Gluing
Crucible
Crucible Brick
Crucible
Charging
Charging Grinding
Charging
Wire
Sawing
Brick
Crystallization
Inspection
Wafer
Cleaning
Brick
Cropping
Final Wafer
Inspection
Recycling
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2. Ingot & Wafer Production Process
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3.1 Graphite support crucible,
crucible & coating layer
inside of crucible is coated
by silicon nitride layer
crucible is centered on
graphite support plate
graphite support plate
crucible suppliers: ceradyne (USA), covalent (Japan), vesuvius
(France)
silicon nitride layer prevents sticking of silicon to crucible
crucible gets soft at temperatures near the silicon melting point
so it needs support by graphite plates from bottom an from
sides
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3.1 Crucible Gen5 & Gen6
Gen6 means ingots consists
of 6*6 bricks
Gen5 means ingots consists
of 5*5 bricks
Gen5 typical charge weight of 420 to 650 kg
Gen6 typical charge weight of 600 to 850 kg
Source: ALD / SCU-flyer 2012
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3.1 Charging of crucible
There are several methods to charge a crucible. Normally you aim for
a high fill factor using different types of silicon:
Polysilicon of different size distributions (chips, chunks, rods)
Self recycling silicon (bottom and side-plates of multi-ingots as well
as out of spec bricks
Add dopant (depending also on amount of recycling silicon)
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3.2 Crystallization phase and
directional crystallization
1 2 3 4 5
liquid silicon liquid silicon
solid silicon solid silicon
Heat extraction to copper heat sink control by
bottom heater and
stepwise opening of shutters of triple heat gate (steps 3-5)
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4.1 Squaring
Squaring equipment cuts multi-crystalline ingots
(Gen5/ Gen6) into bricks and remove the
sidewalls
The cut-away sidewalls parts of the multi ingot will
be recycled for the production of multi-crystalline
silicon ingots (Silicon Recycling).
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