Ferrotec Corporation has announced the availability of a series of Ferrofluidic vacuum rotary feedthrough and subsystem capabilities optimized to reduce costs, improve integration, and enable evolving process technologies in solar and photovoltaic manufacturing applications.
"As the industry standard for vacuum rotary feedthroughs in semiconductor and flat panel display manufacturing, Ferrotec understands the unique challenges that photovoltaic manufacturers face," said Zhixin Li, general manager of the vacuum solutions division of Ferrotec. "With over thirty years of customizing seals for the semiconductor manufacturing industry, Ferrotec is uniquely positioned to provide next generation motion and sealing solutions for the evolving photovoltaics market. By working with Ferrotec during the development of their tools and processes, equipment builders and photovoltaic material producers have access to our vast library of motion and sealing optimizations, enabling larger sizes, higher capacities, faster throughput, improved integration, and significant system cost reductions."
Ferrotec offers a broad range of vacuum rotary feedthrough and subsystem optimizations for photovoltaic manufacturers. With the wide variety of processes and production methodologies being leveraged in the industry, Ferrotec typically works directly with system manufacturers to identify their system requirements, then optimizes an integrated motion and sealing solution for their application. Optimizations may target unique thermal requirements, rotational and torque challenges, unusual size constraints, or even advanced robotic subsystem designs.
Ferrotec's component solutions enable the sustained process control and reliability that high volume production equipment like photovoltaics manufacturers demand. Advanced designs combine features into compact packages, including Ferrofluidic seals, precision bearings and positioning motors, direct cooling, and process monitoring. The company also offers high-torque solid shaft spindles that incorporate Ferrofluidic seals with direct couplings to maximize throughput and equipment uptime for the in-line coating systems used to deposit anti-reflecting and protective coatings on photovoltaics.
