Twin Creeks Unwraps New Tool to Slash Silicon Solar PV Costs

[MitchJi]

Hi,

Sounds good to me:
http://www.twincreekstechnologies.com/

Twin Creeks Technologies: A New Era in Thin Crystalline Wafers

Twin Creeks Technologies develops manufacturing equipment that dramatically reduces the cost of solar modules, sensors, LEDs and other solid-state devices. The key is thinness: wafers produced on Twin Creeks’ Hyperion manufacturing system are less than one-tenth as thick as conventional wafers.

With thin wafers manufacturers can produce more of their products with less raw material and less capital equipment. That means crystalline solar panels that sell for nearly 50 percent less than conventional panels and new generations of inexpensive semiconductors.

Meet the Hyperion 3. Note for scale the computer & desk alongside. The large beams on top of the tool are actually a special crane-lift rig necessary for such a giant piece of equipment.

Interesting and informative video in this page, can't link directly to the video.
http://www.twincreekstechnologies.com/technology/hyperion.html

Hyperion - A Proton Knife

Hyperion, a manufacturing system developed by Twin Creeks Technologies, solves the problem of thick wafers with a technique called Proton Induced Exfoliation (PIE). In PIE, high-energy protons (or hydrogen ions) are embedded into “donor” wafers — standard wafers of silicon, germanium or other single-crystal materials— where they form a uniform layer beneath the surface of the donor. The physical attributes of hydrogen, combined with the conditions created by Hyperion, permit the ions to penetrate the surface of the donor wafer without changing its inherent properties and characteristics.

Watch the video to see Hyperion 3 and how Proton Induced Exfoliation (PIE) works.

When heated, the ions then lift--or exfoliate—a uniform, ultra-thin layer called a lamina from the donor wafer. The lamina becomes a production wafer and can be processed into thin solar cells or semiconductor devices. To use an analogy, the ions act like a scalpel and carve thin, identical and functional wafers from the donor.
A single donor wafer can be reused repeatedly to create multiple laminae. Twin Creeks has lifted 14 laminae from a single donor wafer in its labs with Hyperion and produced solar cells on ten laminae lifted from a single donor wafer.

While the ultra-thin wafers produced with Hyperion contain only a fraction of the material required for a standard wafer, the solar cells, LEDs or devices produced from the Hyperion lamina provide similar or better levels of performance as devices made from conventional “fat” wafers.

More devices are literally made with far less materials.

Trimming The Fat From Factories
Hyperion has the potential to make your single-crystal wafer facilities up to 90% more efficient and reduce your demand for other wafer manufacturing equipment. A solar-factory based around Hyperion can produce cells for less than 40 cents a watt, or nearly half of the price of conventional systems today.

For semiconductor manufacturers, Hyperion can dramatically reduce the back-grinding and wafer thinning process steps in CMOS sensors and 3D packaging operations. With Hyperion, you can design a factory to suit the needs of the semiconductors being produced, not the mechanical shortcomings of conventional wafers.

Although others have experimented with producing thin wafers, Hyperion is the only production-ready system that can produce thin lamina in volume today. The system works because it operates at high voltage and high current, an unusual combination. High voltages are essential for deeply embedding ions while high current is important for the high throughput needed in modern manufacturing.

A single Hyperion 3 system, our commercial-scale manufacturing tool, can process over 1.5 million thin wafers per year, enough for more than 6 megawatts worth of solar cells. While Twin Creeks will initially concentrate on silicon wafers, Hyperion can be employed to produce thin crystalline wafers made from gallium arsenide, germanium, and other materials.

Complete Hyperion 3 systems are available for shipment.

http://www.twincreekstechnologies.com/hyperion-value-solar.html
http://www.twincreekstechnologies.com/hyperion-value-solar.pdf

Hyperion’s Value Proposition in Solar
A Moore's Law for Solar

To become competitive with conventional grid power, the cost of solar power—including modules, electronics, and installation--will need to drop to $1 per watt and the cost of modules will have to drop to 50 cents a watt. It can’t be done with conventional technologies.

Hyperion helps solar manufacturers achieve these milestones profitably by cutting the materials and equipment needed to make crystalline silicon wafers and modules. Many refer to thinning wafers as the “Moore’s Law of Solar.” Benefits include:

Reduced Cell Manufacturing Costs - Solar cells produced with Hyperion thin Si processing are nearly 50% less expensive to manufacture.

Reduced Capital Expenses – Hyperion makes your existing investments in polysilicon, ingot growing and wafering equipment up to 90% more efficient. If you need to expand, you can count on a 50% reduction in capital to make the same number of wafers.

Predictable Si costs - By consuming fewer materials per module, manufacturers are less exposed to swings in commodity prices. Manufacturers can better insulate themselves from fluctuations in spot and contract prices for silicon and other materials.

Flexible Format Cells - Solar modules produced with Hyperion thin Si lamina are bendable, allowing manufacturers to package solar directly into roofing materials to reduce packaging, installation and shipping costs.

An article:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com...-tool-process-to-slash-silicon-solar-pv-costs

 

[dogman dan]

Produced for half the cost will not be immediately passed on to the buyer. Look at flexible film panel prices. Way higher than promised. In fact, close to the same price as silicon panels.

Lighter panels will rock for mobile applications though!

 

[TylerDurden]

We'll see. With FirstSolar hurting, along with other US manufacturers, maybe a slight price easing will realize.

Or, maybe not:



U.S. solar to get Obama aid in battle with China


By Doug Palmer and Leonora Walet
WASHINGTON/HONG KONG | Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:15am EDT
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama's administration is expected to throw its weight behind U.S. solar panel producers on Tuesday in their battle against lower-priced imports from China that they say threaten the future of the industry in the United States.

A coalition of seven U.S. manufacturers has asked for duties topping 100 percent on Chinese-made solar cells and panels, which they say are subsidized by the Chinese government and "dumped" in the United States at unfairly low prices.

The case, which was filed last year, has created more friction in the U.S.-China trade relationship, already strained by clashes over Beijing's currency policies and U.S. duties on a number of other Chinese goods.

China's biggest solar manufacturers, which include Suntech Power Holdings Co, Trina Solar, and JA Solar Holdings, generate more than 20 percent of their annual sales in the United States, making it the second-largest market for them after Europe.

They are already moving to shift some of their production out of China to dodge additional U.S. tariffs. "We're already dependent on the Middle East for our oil. We cannot become dependent on the Far East for our renewable energy," said Gordon Brinser, president of SolarWorld Industries America, which heads the coalition and the U.S. arm of one of Germany's largest solar manufacturers, SolarWorld AG.

The group appears to have found a sympathetic ear in Obama. "I don't want to see wind turbines and solar panels and high-tech batteries made in other countries by other workers. I want to make them here," Obama said last week. The U.S. Commerce Department will announce preliminary countervailing or anti-subsidy duties on Tuesday and preliminary anti-dumping duties in mid-May. A final decision on both is expected in the third or fourth quarter of the year.

Analysts expect 20 to 30 percent anti-subsidy duties on the imports, which soared to an estimated $2.8 billion in 2011 from about $1.2 billion in 2010. The punitive tariff, if it comes, is expected to take effect immediately. Chinese companies will be reimbursed if the decision is reversed later this year.

CELL TOLLING

U.S. producers say the Chinese companies receive a long list of subsidies, including below-market loans from China's state-owned banks and subsidized raw materials, such as polysilicon, that greatly reduce their operating costs and helped Chinese firms grow their share of the U.S. market to nearly 40 percent from 11 percent in 2009.

But efforts to whittle down China's presence in the U.S. market could hurt the fast-growing American solar market, where the industry is racing to cut costs and reduce its dependence on government incentives for renewable energy.

"The resulting uptick in pricing might be temporary good news for module vendors who have struggled to compete with Chinese firms, but we think the most substantive result is more likely to be lower U.S. demand," Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Joe Osha said in recent note to investors. And China's solar makers appear to be already moving to shift their production outside the mainland, ordering key supplies from Taiwanese companies to avoid likely U.S. tariffs.

Suntech moved some of its operations to Arizona as early as 2010, and other Chinese companies are likely to follow. "Chinese module makers will not give up the U.S. market," said chief financial officer Terry Wang at Trina Solar, which is also planning to add plants outside China.

Chinese solar companies may also be able to take advantage of spare production capacity in countries such as Taiwan. "The likely response would be doing 'cell tolling' in Taiwan in order to avoid the U.S. import tariff," said Xavier Chollet, co-manager of Pictet's Clean Energy Fund.

Under such deals, Chinese companies provide products to Taiwan companies, which then process them to be packaged at solar panel plants elsewhere. That trend has not gone unnoticed by SolarWorld and its partners, who also are asking the Commerce Department to structure punitive tariffs in a way that will reduce the opportunity for Chinese companies to skirt the duties.

"The scope of the case that we've proposed would cover Chinese cells that are made into modules (panels) somewhere else, or Chinese modules that are made from cells, whether from China or somewhere else," said Timothy Brightbill, an attorney with Wiley & Rein. "We will be quick to act if there are any signs of improper activity."

(Reporting by Doug Palmer in Washington, Leonora Walet in Hong Kong and Matthew Daily in New York; Additional reporting by Christoph Steitz in Frankfurt; Editing by Robert Birsel)