Market Survey on Metallization Pastes 2018-TaiyangNews.pdf

Market Survey Metallization Pastes 2018 Authors: Shravan K. Chunduri, Michael Schmela 2 TaiyangNews | Metallization Pastes 2018 Contents © TaiyangNews 2018 All rights reserved. The text, photos and graphs in this report are copyrighted (cover photo credit: Monocrystal). TaiyangNews does not guarantee reliability, accuracy or completeness of this report s content. TaiyangNews does not accept responsibility or liability for any errors in this work. Publisher: TaiyangNews UG (haftungsbeschraenkt) Montsalvatstr. 15 80804 Munich, Germany www.taiyangnews.info Click on the chapter you want to explore. 01 Introduction 6 • Heraeus p.3 • Fusion p.4 • DKEM p.7 • SNEC p.17 • SolarPower Europe p. 77 Advertisers: 02 8 Overview • Pastes for different applications • Suppliers of Pastes • Metallization Market Update 03 12 Important Aspects of Pastes • Silver and Paste Consumption • Finger Opening and Dimensions • Emitter Profile 04 Advanced Front Contacting Technologies 18 05 20 Advanced Cell Technologies • PERC • n-type • Heterojunction 06 Product Descriptions • Silver Pastes for Standard Emitters • Double thus they need to be mixed thoroughly, which is achieved using three roll mills, as shown in these two photos. Source: Fusion7 TaiyangNews | Metallization Pastes 2018 Stronger. Together. Embrace the Advanced PERC the other ingredients play a supportive role in establishing a reliable, long- living contact. Organic compounds, for example, act as a vehicle system to lead the paste through the application process (today this is screen printing) by controlling the viscosity of the pastes. After the organic content of the paste has done its job, it is burned out during the drying/firing process and leaves the inorganic portion on the wafer. The glass frit helps dissolving the metal powder and adhesion. Organic and inorganic additives are used for fine- tuning the paste properties. However, the actual paste composition depends on the final application. 2.2 Pastes for different applications A standard cell structure requires three different pastes composites – a silver-based front contact, an aluminum-based rear contact and back surface field (BSF), and silver-based rear tabbing. Every advanced metallization concept and high efficiency architectures needs different paste systems. That’s also the reasons why the products in the survey are listed under 7 different categories: • Front contact silver pastes (p-type) • Pastes used in double and dual printing • Rear tabbing silver pastes • Aluminum back surface field (BSF) pastes • Complete paste systems for Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC) architecture • Pastes for n-type cells • Low temperature curable pastes, typically used for heterojunction cells and some thin-film PV technologies 2.3 Suppliers Side of Pastes In our 2 nd market survey on metallization pastes, a total of 118 products are listed from 11 suppliers. • Changzhou Fusion New Material Corp., Ltd. • DK Electronic Materials Co, China (DKEM) • DuPont, US • Heraeus, Germany • Monocrystal PLC, Russia • Phoenix Materials Co., Ltd, Korea • Samsung SDI, Korea • Soltrium Advanced Materials Technology, China • Shanghai Glory New Materials, China • Toyo Aluminum K.K., Japan • Zhejiang Gonda Electronic Technology Co.,Ltd, China Compared to last year’s survey, when14 paste suppliers provided data for 122 products, 5 suppliers have dropped from the list, while 2 companies have provided data for the first time. Still, the current survey includes all leading metallization paste makers, except for Taiwan’s Giga Solar, which has not responded to our enquiry (but is apparently not doing too well – in November, PV-Tech reported that Giga Solar even agreed to pay patent licensing fees to its competitor DuPont Photovoltaics and sales went down). Like in any other PV segment, more and more Asian suppliers are joining the solar cell metallization segment and increase their market shares. Meanwhile, Chinese paste makers are also able to enter the supply chain to the Tier 1 cell makers and claiming double digit market shares. Acknowledging the fact of local competition from China makers, Ted Zhi from DuPont says that the new competition does bring new opportunities as well as new developments in the industry, but emphasizes on “fair” business practices, especially related to intellectual property. IP lawsuits are not very frequent in PV, but you could read in the press about a number of cases in the metallization field in the recent past. Not only DuPont and Heraeus entered a IP related lawsuit, these two companies have also filled patent infringement cases separately against other pastes makers. 2. Overview