I’ve been told that sometimes a good headline will include two things that seem to disagree. Using that logic, I’d say “cell interconnection” and “standardization” make a good headline, since there is no unified standardization in the tabbing and stringing process.
My new friends (pictured at right) hope to help change that. Dirk Schade and Cynthia Blank from XYZTEC have agreed to help Indium Corporation and the IPC Solar committee work toward building a standard for tabbing ribbon-to-cell bond strength testing.
XYZTEC is known for their high precision test equipment, which was developed for the semiconductor industry. They have since modified their equipment to handle c-Si cells, and to test the interconnection as well as the mechanical strength of the cells. Check it out here.
Is there a cell/flux/ribbon/equipment combination that you would like to understand better? Maybe we could test your application!