Decker Anlagenbau GmbH - Founded in the last decade of the 19th century, Decker has evolved into a company offering innovative and exciting products for the photovoltaic industry concentrating on niches others have not fully addressed. In 1980, when there was virtually no PV industry, Decker built its first etching equipment for solar cells. In the years that followed, new equipment for etching raw silicon was added for use in the semiconductor industry. Today, Decker's PV customers benefit from the company's 30 years of PV experience. And with the new GECKO wafer separation tool, Decker demonstrates its innovative power is as strong as ever.
Decker's products are used in polysilicon plants and wafer factories. There are three product lines:
- Etching equipment for cleaning silicon,
- Gas scrubbers,
- GECKO wafer separation tool.
Silicon Etching Equipment
Decker uses acidic etch solutions to achieve superior cleaning results. Acidic etching (as opposed to alkaline etching after mechanical surface treatments, such as blasting) leads to much cleaner surfaces because acidic etching does not add contaminants. Depending on the condition of the silicon material, other wet cleaning steps might be added to remove e.g. organics from the surface prior to etching. The equipment is designed as a complete solution, meaning the customers need not worry about how to handle the chemicals. Mixing tanks, effluent tanks and waste gas treatment solutions (for NOx, HF and SiF4) are part of the equipment and comply with the most stringent safety requirements. The wet benches are modular and can be tailored to meet the customer's requirements, from the most basic etching to microelectronic grade results. The greatest challenge in silicon etching is presented by small particles or granules. Decker’s solution to this problem is their granule etching tool, which allows small sized silicon debris and wafer scrap to be recycled, saving literally tons of silicon and more importantly, tons of money.
- Silicon rod etching (slim rods)
- Silicon chunk etching (sizes 3 - 100 mm) - Throughput: 1,250 metric tons / year
- Silicon slab etching - Throughput: 1,250 metric tons / year
- Silicon granule etching (sizes 0.1 - 3 mm) - Throughput: 400 metric tons / year
- Silicon etch solutions for wafer recycling - Throughput: 400 metric tons / year
- Gas scrubbers
- Custom etch solutions including alkaline etching for module recycling
GECKO Wafer Separation
One process step in wafer manufacturing resisted replacement by automated equipment - the separation of wafers after sawing and pre-cleaning, sometimes referred to as wafer singulation. As a result, operators in most factories today manually separate the wafers and feed them by hand into the final wafer cleaning tool. The disadvantages are obvious: yield losses, throughput restrictions, no process statistics, complex shift systems, high labor cost and low tool utilization. The challenge for an automated piece of equipment is not to separate a pair of perfect wafers - the challenge is to separate wafers which (i) are getting thinner each year, (ii) are occasionally broken into one or more pieces, (iii) are wet and covered with residual slurry of varying consistency, (iv) are of varying thickness within one lot, (v) are sometimes locked together by saw marks. Decker's solution - the GECKO - is simple and efficiently overcomes all of these obstacles. Knowing that several competent companies attempted to develop an automated solution and failed, we can say with confidence that the GECKO is THE ONE that really works!
- GECKO wafer separation tool - Wafer thickness: ³120 µm; Throughput net: 2,700 wafers/hour
Literature for Download
Product overview Gecko wafer separation
Where is Decker Located?
Decker is located 50 minutes by car southeast from Nuernberg in the German town of Berching.
Decker's manufacturing facility and headquarters in rural Berching,
a town in Germany's lovely "Oberpfalz" region in the state of Bavaria.
Please also visit Decker at: www.decker-anlagenbau.de