Sino-american Silicon Products Inc.

Globalwafers Co., Ltd.

Wen-Chieh Lan

Wen-Ching Hsu

Wen-Huai Yu

Chung-Wen Lan

Sung-Lin Hsu

Yu-Min Yang

Kai-Yuan Pai

Cheng-Jui Yang

Yu-Tsung Chiang

Chan-Lu Su

I-Ching Li

Jiunn-Yih Chyan

Chih-Chieh Yu

Lu-Chung Chuang

Bruce Hsu

Ya-Lu Tsai

Yong-Cheng Yu

Chao-Kun Hsieh

A method of fabricating a poly-crystalline silicon ingot includes: (a) loading a nucleation promotion layer onto a bottom of a mold; (b) providing a silicon source on the nucleation promotion layer in the mold; (c) heating the mold until the silicon source is melted into a silicon melt completely; (d) controlling at least one thermal control parameter regarding the silicon melt continually to enable the silicon melt to nucleate on the nucleation promotion layer such that a plurality of silicon grains grow in the vertical direction; (e) controlling the at least one thermal control parameter to enable the plurality of the silicon grains to continuously grow with an average grain size increasing progressively in the vertical direction until entirety of the silicon melt is solidified to obtain the poly-crystalline silicon ingot, wherein the nucleation promotion layer is loaded by spreading a plurality of mono-Si particles over the bottom of the mold.

Methods of fabricating a poly-crystalline silcon ingot from a nucleation promotion layer comprised of chips and chunks of silicon-containing particles

A poly-crystalline silicon ingot having a bottom and defining a vertical direction includes a plurality of silicon grains grown in the vertical direction, in which the plurality of the silicon grains have at least three crystal orientations; and a nucleation promotion layer comprising a plurality of chips and chunks of poly-crystalline silicon on the bottom, wherein the poly-crystalline silicon ingot has a defect density at a height ranging from about 150 mm to about 250 mm of the poly-crystalline silicon ingot that is less than 15%.

Poly-crystalline silicon ingot having a nucleation promotion layer comprising a plurality of chips and chunks of poly-crystalline silicon on the bottom

A crystal growth apparatus includes a crucible, a heating device, a thermal insulation cover, and a driving device. The crucible contains materials to be melted, wherein the heating device heats the crucible to melt the materials; the thermal insulation cover is provided upon the materials, wherein the thermal insulation cover includes a main body, which has a bottom surface facing an interior of the crucible, and a insulating member being provided at the main body; the driving device moves the thermal insulation cover towards or away from the materials, whereby, the thermal insulation cover effectively blocks heat conduction and heat convection, which prevents thermal energy from escaping out of the crucible.

Crystal growth apparatus and thermal insulation cover of the same

A stirring apparatus of an ingot casting furnace includes a rotating shaft and at least one fin. The fin is provided onto the rotating shaft, and has a first edge, a second edge of unequal length provided correspondingly, and a third edge connecting the first and the second edges. The rotating shaft can be driven to rotate, which consequently drives the at least one fin to stir materials in a crucible. The length of the first edge is different from that of the second edge in order for the materials in the crucible can be mixed with dopants more uniformly during the stirring process to produce ingots of stable quality.

Stirring apparatus of ingot casting furnace

A crystalline silicon ingot and a method of fabricating the same are provided. The method utilizes a nucleation promotion layer to facilitate a plurality of silicon grains to nucleate on the nucleation promotion layer from a silicon melt and grow in a vertical direction into silicon grains until the silicon melt is completely solidified. The increment rate of defect density in the silicon ingot along the vertical direction has a range of 0.01%/mm&#x2dc;10%/mm.

Crystalline silicon ingot including nucleation promotion layer

Method of fabricating crystalline silicon ingot including nucleation promotion layer

A crystal growth device includes a crucible and a heater setting. The crucible has a bottom and a top opening. The heater setting surrounds the crucible and is movable relative to the crucible along a top-bottom direction of the crucible and between first and second positions. The heater setting includes a first temperature heating zone and a second temperature heating zone higher in temperature than the first temperature heating zone. The heater setting is in the first position when the crucible is in the second temperature heating zone and in the second position when the crucible is in the first temperature heating zone.

Crystal growth device

A crystalline silicon ingot and a method of manufacturing the same are provided. Using a crystalline silicon seed layer, the crystalline silicon ingot is formed by a directional solidification process. The crystalline silicon seed layer is formed of multiple primary monocrystalline silicon seeds and multiple secondary monocrystalline silicon seeds. Each of the primary monocrystalline silicon seeds has a first crystal orientation different from (100). Each of the secondary monocrystalline silicon seeds has a second crystal orientation different from the first crystal orientation. Each of the primary monocrystalline silicon seeds is adjacent to at least one of the secondary monocrystalline silicon seeds, and separate from the others of the primary monocrystalline silicon seeds.

Crystalline silicon ingot and method of fabricating the same

An approach is provided for a method to manufacture a crystalline silicon ingot. The method comprises providing a mold formed for melting and cooling a silicon feedstock by using a directional solidification process, disposing a barrier layer inside the mold, disposing one or more silicon crystal seeds on the barrier layer, loading the silicon feedstock on the silicon crystal seeds, heating the mold to obtain a silicon melt, and cooling the mold by the directional solidification process to solidify the silicon melt into a silicon ingot. The mold is heated until the silicon feedstock is fully melted and the silicon crystal seeds are at least partially melted.

Growing community of inventors

Hsinchu, Taiwan

Wen-Chieh Lan