System and method of growing silicon ingots from seeds in a crucible and manufacture of seeds used therein

Abstract

Systems and methods that reduce the overall cost of producing a silicon ingot are provided herein. More specifically, one or more surface pieces may be sliced from a silicon boule in relation to a plurality of nodes at a particular orientation. These one or more surface pieces may then be formed into one or more seeds having a specific length, width and thickness usable in a silicon ingot growth process. By utilizing these pieces to form one or more seeds, pieces of a boule which would have been previously discarded may now be used to form high quality seeds for use in a silicon ingot grow process.

Description

[0001] Cross References to Related Applications [0002] This application claims priority to US Provisional Patent Application No. 61 / 684,331, filed August 17, 2013. The entire content of this application is hereby incorporated by reference herein. technical field [0003] The present invention relates to systems and methods for growing silicon ingots from seed crystals in crucibles, and methods of making seed crystals used therein. Background technique [0004] Crystal growth equipment or furnaces such as Directional Solidification Systems (DSS) involve the melting and controlled resolidification of feedstock materials such as silicon in crucibles to produce ingots. The production of solidified ingots from molten feedstock occurs over several hours in a number of identifiable steps. For example, to produce silicon ingots by the DSS process, solid silicon feedstock is loaded into crucibles and placed in the hot zone of a DSS furnace. The feedstock charge is then heated us...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0007] Since the cost of the required seed crystals is usually quite high (eg, approximately $2,000 to $10,000 per ingot), the manufacturing cost of each individual ingot is therefore extremely high

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