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Successful Case of RFID Production Process Management in a Photovoltaic Crystal Pulling Plant

With the global energy shortage and climate warming, clean energy has become a major development goal for domestic energy. The photovoltaic industry, as a key part of clean energy, has become a strategic emerging industry in China after more than a decade of development. In the context of intelligent manufacturing, integrating new technologies, controlling production, improving efficiency, and reducing costs are important means for the photovoltaic industry to maintain its competitiveness.

I. Project Background

With the global energy shortage and climate warming, clean energy has become a major development goal for domestic energy. The photovoltaic industry, as a key part of clean energy, has become a strategic emerging industry in China. In the context of intelligent manufacturing, integrating new technologies, controlling production, improving efficiency, and reducing costs are important means to maintain industry competitiveness.

Due to the overall complex production process of the photovoltaic industry, reliable and intelligent RFID solutions are needed to achieve efficient operation. This successful case is from a photovoltaic crystal pulling plant in Yunnan. According to the process, the crystal pulling workshop mainly includes the following processes: crystal pulling – cutting – squaring – grinding and chamfering. It is necessary to collect data on monocrystalline silicon during the production process.

II. Industry Pain Points

  • Discrete manufacturing, complex manufacturing processes, harsh environment
  • Manual paper records, high error rate; production data and quality data cannot be tracked in real time during manufacturing
  • Data collection across different processes is difficult to integrate, unable to provide data support for MES informatization construction

    • III. Solution

    At each workstation, it is necessary to accurately identify and read all monocrystalline silicon information on the tray, and cooperate with the MES system to achieve docking with on-site equipment, collection and transparent transmission of production information data, and exception handling, in order to achieve equipment data analysis results and improve data informatization construction.

    The process sequence of the crystal pulling plant is: high-purity polycrystalline silicon (raw material) is cleaned – enters the Czochralski furnace for melting – after melting, a complete cylindrical ingot is pulled out – workers place the cylindrical silicon ingot in the warehouse for cooling. After cooling, a preliminary inspection is performed (the inspection checks whether the resistivity, dimensions, and lifetime data of the silicon ingot meet standards) – the cylindrical silicon ingot is cut into various lengths according to order data using a cutting machine – after cutting, employees affix barcodes (recording various data of the silicon ingot) and also use a water-based pen to draw the cutting lines for the square ingot on the cylindrical surface – the cylindrical ingot enters a squaring machine to be cut into square ingots – the formed square ingot enters a grinding and chamfering machine for final shaping – square inspection (checking dimensions, resistivity, lifetime, and appearance of the final square ingot) – after passing, it is packaged – and sent to the customer.

    Data collection by RFID industrial readers on the automatic production line starts from the cutting machine. After the cutting machine cuts the silicon ingot, the robotic arm places the silicon ingot onto a tray and performs the first data write to bind the silicon ingot information with the tray information. In subsequent automatic lines, each process has an RFID reader for data collection, and the binding is released offline at the final process.

    工艺流程图1 工艺流程图2

    Related Equipment:

  • E1684B Gateway Controller
  • D1604R Industrial Reader
  • UT712 Industrial Data Carrier RFID Tag

    • The application of RFID products provides real-time statistical data of tray information for the customer's MES system, enabling tracking and control of monocrystalline silicon wafers throughout the entire process flow, achieving intelligence, visualization, and transparency of the production workshop process flow. Through the identification of trays by the D1604R HF industrial reader, the production process flow is optimized. Through intelligent analysis and processing of data, management intelligence is achieved, promoting cost reduction and efficiency improvement. The successful implementation of this crystal pulling plant production line project reduces the labor intensity of front-line workers, improves the customer's production efficiency and product yield rate, and provides a model for the standardization and normalization of the entire industry. Improving production inspection accuracy, automation helps reduce human error rates.

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    FAQ

    In smart manufacturing, RFID is used for process tracking, tool management and production error-proofing. Fuen's HF and LF industrial readers are installed at production stations to read tags on trays and carriers in real time, automatically recording process steps and verifying parameters to prevent wrong material or sequence. Typical applications include PV ingot factory process management, automotive body tracking and non-standard automated inspection lines.
    RFID enables automatic inbound registration, outbound verification and real-time inventory. Fuen's UHF readers with gate portals (G15) batch-read tags as goods pass through without individual scanning. Combined with forklift retrofit solutions, location updates are completed during handling. Fuen has successfully implemented forklift RFID retrofit projects for Shen International Logistics Port, improving inbound efficiency by over 60%.
    RFID upgrades manual one-by-one verification to batch automatic inventory, significantly reducing missed inspection rates and labor costs. Fuen's mobile engineering vehicle tool management solution uses handheld terminals for full-vehicle inventory in one scan — 10 seconds versus 1 hour manually. In power grid asset lifecycle management, RFID tags attached to equipment enable full-process tracking from procurement to deployment to retirement.
    RFID anti-counterfeiting uses encrypted electronic tags on products combined with backend databases for item-level full-chain traceability. Fuen's fragile anti-transfer tag (UT203) is destroyed once removed, preventing tag reuse. Typical applications include live pig supply chain tracing and pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting systems, providing full visibility from production through distribution to end consumption.
    RFID enables rapid receiving, smart inventory and anti-theft management in chain retail. Handheld terminals batch-scan inbound goods, completing full-store inventory in minutes. Fuen's clothing store solution combines HF tags and UHF handhelds for full-chain visibility from distribution center to store shelf, improving inventory accuracy to over 99%.
    RFID in smart cities mainly applies to vehicle management and public safety. Fuen's intelligent vehicle positioning and speed measurement system uses active tags for long-range identification and speed detection; e-bike anti-theft solutions track tagged vehicles via intersection readers for rapid recovery; parking management enables non-stop passage and automatic billing. These solutions are deployed in multiple cities.