Abstract
The fast growing photovoltaic market is mainly based on crystalline silicon. The strong demand on silicon requires wafer manufacturers to produce high-quality material through high productivity processes with low cost. Therefore, to remain the competition of single crystal silicon in the solar market, highly efficient Czochralski crystal growth is required. In this paper, we discuss some of the important issues in the production of solar-grade silicon by the Czochralski method. Special focuses will be on the hot-zone design and multiple charges. The implementation of these concepts has led to significant cost reduction and yield improvement for both 6" and 8" -diameter solar-grade silicon in production. Some comments for the future development are also given.
