Evaluation of Handling Stresses Applied to EFG Silicon Wafer using a Bernoulli Gripper

The Manufacturing Research Center at Georgia Tech is addressing both fundamental and practical issues related to the handling of polycrystalline silicon wafers used in the manufacture of photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules. As Bernoulli grippers are widely used in the PV industry for handling silicon wafers, this paper focuses on the study of such grippers. The objective of this work is to develop an understanding of the influence of gripper variables and silicon wafer characteristics on wafer deformation and stresses in order to prevent wafer breakage and thereby improve yield. A finite element model has been developed to predict handling stresses based on measured wafer deformation profiles