The photovoltaic industry is fast developing with a CAGR of 40% over the past 10 years (1999-2008), reaching 5.6GW in shipments in 2008. However after the 2009 global crisis and following market consolidation, every PV cell and module manufacturer is facing a stronger challenge to reduce its manufacturing costs in order to reduce $/Wp.

Excico laser technology and processes focuses on enabling PV manufacturers to lower the $/Wp ratio. Crystalline silicon solar cells will benefit from Excico laser processing through the manufacturing of high efficiency designs with unrivaled low thermal budgets at high throughputs. Such high efficiency designs are a driver to reduce $/Wp, as is the low thermal budget enabling use of very thin wafers down to 100µm thickness.Thin Film solar cell technologies benefit from Excico technology to improve PV material characteristics by means of laser recrystallization and/or defects annealing in solar cell stacks. The very low thermal budgets allows processing materials and devices while maintaining low temperatures in substrates, making laser processing compatible with flexible or plastic substrates.