International Business Machines Corporation

Illinois Tool Works Inc.

Roy Kearns Ball

Clint Lee Schow

Stephen J Ames

Daniel M Ruf

Christopher Keith White

Methods and apparatus to control zone temperatures in a solar cell production system are disclosed. An example furnace to fire photovoltaic cells includes: a plurality of zones comprising firing elements configured to fire a metallization layer of photovoltaic cells by heating the photovoltaic cells in the zones; one or more belts configured to transport photovoltaic cells through a sequence of the plurality of zones; a user interface comprising one or more input devices; and control circuitry configured to: control the firing elements for the plurality of zones; and modify a configuration of two or more of the plurality of zones based on input received via the input device.

Methods and apparatus to control zone temperatures of a solar cell production system

A data receiver, which could be an optical transceiver, a modem, a router hub, is capable of detecting the transmission rate of incoming data. The data is converted to electrical waves appropriate for passive or active bandpass filtering. The frequencies at which the waves are filtered are determined from a plurality of known possible transmission rates and are chosen as having the most detectable difference in the power spectra. By implementing a filter at the corresponding frequency(ies), data having that (those) frequency(ies) will be transmitted. A signal detector then can receive a signal transmitted through the filter and determine the corresponding data rate. It is further contemplated that the multiple frequencies can be filtered by using stages of filters and signal detectors for different frequencies or by filters and detectors capable of multiple frequency operation.

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Austin, MN, United States of America

Roy Kearns Ball