At the World Conference on Photovoltaics in Hawaii, Sinton Consulting, Inc will be announcing a complete new line of minority-carrier lifetime testers. The entire line of instruments has been fully redesigned from top to bottom. The new designs incorporate the experience of the hundreds of users during the 11 years since the introduction of the now classic WCT-100. The new instruments will be the WCT-120 for R&D measurements on silicon wafers, the BCT-300 for measurements on blocks or ingots of silicon, and the WCT-IL-1200 inline wafer tester.

The new model WCT-120 will be on display and available for measurements at the exhibits. Over its 11 year run, the WCT-100 became a standard for calibrated lifetime measurements, as evidenced by the roughly 120 citations in technical papers in 2005. Over 200 Sinton lifetime test instruments are in use worldwide.

The new WCT-120 includes all of the features of the previous instrument, but has been completely revamped with a new mechanical design, auto-tuning, and accommodation for large wafer sizes. The user interface has been updated to include an expert system for guiding the user. Many new features closely integrate the measurement methodology and new hardware capabilities into the analysis.

The BCT-300 is a compact update of the 2005 R&D 100 award-winning BCT-210 tester for silicon ingots and blocks. It incorporates the updated functionality of the new generation of instruments including the auto-tuning and resistivity-measurement features.

About Sinton Consulting:

Established in 1992 by Ron Sinton, we are dedicated to developing and applying new tools and analysis to R&D and manufacturing in silicon solar cells. The company is a leading supplier of minority-carrier lifetime-test instruments, with over 200 in use worldwide encompassing a majority of silicon research labs and manufacturers. The instruments are known for their state-of-the-art technically rigorous and calibrated results enabling precision measurements for detailed R&D as well as production-line process control. Sinton Consulting introduced the QSSPC lifetime measurement techniques in 1995 which greatly simplified and standardized device-physics studies using lifetime measurements.

Our test instruments have proven to be central to the development and manufacture of high-efficiency silicon solar cells within the industry. They are used at every stage from silicon growers, through R&D labs, solar cell fabrication, and module test.

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