The Future of Photovoltaics Manufacturing in the United States Summary of Two Symposia (2011) / Chapter Skim
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Panel IV: Advances in Photovoltaic Manufacturing: Intermediating Institutions
Panel IV: Advances in Photovoltaic Manufacturing: Intermediating Institutions
Pages 171-193
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From page 171... ...
Engardio, and said he would describe one particular solution for the photovoltaic industry. "That need," he began, "is to help companies transition from a lab-scale prototype to a fully qualified manufacturing process ready for funding by the capital markets or the DoE loan guarantee program." He reviewed the standard options for PV companies seeking to finance their manufacturing process.
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From page 172... ...
This funding to support a new PV technology transitioning from an R&D prototype into a final product and qualified manufacturing process represents the new "Valley of Death" for the photovoltaic industry. Companies Pay Only for the Equipment They Need SVTC Solar proposes a way to bridge this valley of death through a solar product development center that offers the necessary manufacturing tools, infrastructure and engineering expertise to advance each company's technology.
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From page 173... ...
Unlike semiconductor manufacturing, where companies share baseline process IP and differentiate at the circuit level, companies in PV have no such circuit level. PV companies rely on baseline process IP as their primary asset, and they need the comfort of knowing that their proprietary technology is safe.
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From page 174... ...
Several weeks ago the company announced an agreement with Roth and Rau for a 30 MW turnkey manufacturing line in the SVTC facility in San Jose, California, and the facility will have these tools. The difference between the SVTC facility and a standard manufacturing line from Roth and Rau, he said, is that the robotics will allow the user to run the standard baseline process, producing the desired cell efficiency, but will also allow wafers to be diverted after each tool, so that they can be processed on alternative tools.
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From page 175... ...
Let us provide the rest and get you to market quickly." INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIP FOR PHOTOVOLTAIC TECHNOLOGIES Nolan Browne MIT-Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems Dr. Browne began with a sketch of the parent Fraunhofer Gesellschaft in Germany.
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From page 176... ...
Combining Basic with Applied Strengths The MIT-Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems (CSE) , based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is its newest venture, an alliance between the two research institutions.
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From page 177... ...
There are also national security concerns, like ITAR." 10 The second problem, he said, is resource mismatch. Aside from the equipment issue, university-sponsored research tends to be "a little inflexible." That is, it may be difficult for an industry partner to work within the normal academic schedule of a graduate student.
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From page 178... ...
A large body of work comes from students who do their thesis work for the university in the CSE laboratory. To accommodate this, the center has three sets of labs: 11 The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, founded in 1948, is an independent nonprofit association of nearly 80 German research institutes.
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From page 179... ...
They're paying $50,000 a year to have that graduate student and they need a return." The center addresses this through a Fraunhofer-MIT seed grant program. Students are funded jointly to work in the Fraunhofer lab and earn their Ph.D.s there.
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From page 180... ...
It is a member-driven organization of semiconductor companies, he said, that share the goals of technological innovation and manufacturing productivity. It approaches these objectives by addressing questions throughout the supply chain.
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From page 181... ...
In 1987, he said, essentially two proposals came out of government and industry (from the Defense Science Board and the Semiconductor Industry Association) that coalesced in driving an organization with the features of SEMATECH.
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From page 182... ...
you can set an agenda driven by a consensus. People know this will result in something the industry will utilize." In addition to increasing the number of semiconductor manufacturers, the consortium has added equipment and materials suppliers, who help set and drive an agenda that interests them, broadening the reach of the group and helping it to be more productive.
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From page 183... ...
Polcari said, is by doing "a lot of benchmarking, where members request data and than have to share it in nondisclosed ways." They also have a Manufacturing Methods Council that develops and shares best practices, aided by equipment productivity teams, where members identify common problems on a tool or tool set and work together with a supplier. "This turns out to be more efficient than working independently.
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From page 184... ...
Sumney, "or to find educated students familiar with silicon ICs." The research needs seemed to be greater than any single company could address alone. In order to reduce cost and risk of the needed research, industry decided to organize, and pool their resources.
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From page 185... ...
"These may be integrated into a center, or they may be a single professor and several grad students." SRC was recently a recipient of the National Medal of Technology "for building the world's largest and most successful university research force to support the rapid growth and 10,000-fold advances of the semiconductor industry." It was also praised "for providing the concept of collaborative research as the first high-tech research consortium, and for creating the concept and methodology that evolved into the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors." Agreeing to Collaborate: A Key to Success Mr. Sumney reviewed the reasons for SRC's success.
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From page 186... ...
Member companies consistently rate the organization at about 4.5 on a 1-5 scale of value." Relevance for the Photovoltaic Technologies Industry Mr. Sumney suggested that the way the semiconductor industry has followed roadmaps and Moore's Law may have great relevance for the photovoltaic industry.
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From page 187... ...
Sumney suggested that the collaboration model developed for ICs could easily be applied to new technical areas, such as PV. "One reason we're working on such things is that they bring SRC new members we normally wouldn't Global Focus Center Nanoelectronics Topical Research Research Research Research Collaboration Program Initiative Collaboration Time Frame 7 - 14 yrs 14 - 20 yrs > 20 yrs Variable Limit of Traditional Technology Traditional Beyond CMOS Selected Topics CMOS CMOS Narrowing New Revolutionary Purpose Topic Specific options options discoveries Industry Participation ✓✓✓ ✓✓ ✓ ✓✓✓ Government ✓ ✓✓ ✓✓✓ ✓✓✓ Participation FIGURE 14 Our four major research programs.
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From page 188... ...
We're hoping that this leads to new innovation, new methodologies for collaboration, and valuable results from the universities." PV and semiconductor manufacturing share many features, he said, including • Common materials, such as silicon ingots and wafers. • Common equipment, such as tools for etching, sputtering, chemical vapor deposition, metrology tools, defect inspection, testing and assembly.
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From page 189... ...
"It will be a while before all this shakes out," she said, "and as an association maybe we can lend a calming voice to the fray. We feel we can best address these issues if the industry stakeholders work together." She said that the PV industry is likely to " benefit tremendously from the chip experience." The PV segment within SEMI has grown significantly, largely because semiconductor and flat panel display equipment and materials suppliers have moved into the PV space, and cell and module manufacturers have joined the discussion and begun to actively contribute and weigh in.
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From page 190... ...
manufacturing platforms and their member-driven organizations, including SRC, SEMI, PV Group, and others. Job Creation Potential of Various Electricity Generation Assets 40 Number of Jobs per MW 30 20 10 0 Coal Natural Gas Nuclear Tidal Wind Geothermal Biomass - Solar PV Dedicated Steam Source: INEEL, BC Sustainable Energy Association, Renewable Energy Policy Project, Lehman Brothers research.
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From page 191... ...
"We know from the ITRS experience that many hundreds of standards and safety guidelines have been generated because of the semiconductor roadmap and the information it provided." These standards helped improve interfaces, tool-to-tool communication, process and materials efficiencies, operating risks, environmental contamination, and other parameters. She gave a short history of SEMI, which was established in 1970.
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From page 192... ...
Sumney said he agreed, using the example of Micron, a commodity memory manufacturer that has been involved in SRC's Focus Center Research Program for 12 years. "We're holding a memory workshop in October," he said, "and they were one of the first companies to sign up.
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From page 193... ...
PANEL IV 193 industry" and is also an industry that requires a much smaller investment. He said that SVTC Solar had met with more than 100 PV companies, and their largest concern was the investment community's reluctance to act during the early months when there are still uncertainties about "whether the technology will be manufacturable." Even though the funds required might not be large compared with the semiconductor industry, they are large for individual PV companies.
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