"We carefully read the binding guidelines of the Chinese government for investments in the solar industry and feel reassured in our prediction that in the short and medium term only PV manufacturers will survive who are now investing in new equipment, enabling the production of high-performance solar cells with an efficiency of more than 20%,” said Dr. Christian Buchner, vice president of business unit PV at the SCHMID Group. “For our turnkey solutions we guarantee 18% efficiency in the production of multi-crystalline cells, and 20% for mono-crystalline cells. The readiness to invest is given, but only in highly efficient technology".

SCHMID is the only equipment manufacturer to offer a complete process from a single source using the passivated emitter rear cell (PERC) production process. SCHMID's PERC portfolio ranges from rear side cleaning and APCVD coating to laser opening of the coated rear side. All systems can be integrated into already-existing production lines and offer the lowest cost in the market. According to SCHMID, the application of the required passivation layers and covering layers with the Atmospheric Pressure chemical vapour deposition (APCVD) is about 40-50% cheaper than with alternative atomic layer deposition (ALD) or Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) processes. 

PERC cells consist of crystalline silicon. For rear side passivation a layer of aluminium oxide is deposited on the base material by means of APCVD. The backside coating is completed by two covering layers, also produced by the APCVD. Depending on the wafer material, the PERC cells reach average efficiency values of 20% - 20.5% on Cz and 18% -18.5% on mc-Si, when applying the SCHMID process.