Technical and economical analysis of emerging technologies for production of low thickness solar cell silicon wafers

Polycrystalline silicon wafers are produced by carbothermic reduction of silicon oxides in electric arc furnaces. Leader silicon wafer producer companies use emerging production technologies to reduce the production cost of silicon wafers. These efforts lead to reduce the production cost of silicon wafers by 66%. Emerging technologies for production of kerfless silicon wafers with the low thickness are studied in this paper. Using of these technologies in comparison with the conventional production methods lead to reduce the production cost remarkably. These emerging technologies improved the value chain of silicon wafers of solar cell panels. Conventional methods of silicon wafers manufacturing produce high amount of kerf. Wafers produced with these emerging methods have good technical specifications such as thickness, total thickness variation and mechanical properties. These are drivers of the future of this technology.