BrightView achieves milestones at Signet Solar thin film photovoltaic plant

BrightView Systems, a Petah Tikva, Israel-based cleantech start-up, announced today the successful integration and validation of its WAM (Wide Area Metrology) process metrology and mapping solution for thin-film PV manufacturers at Signet Solar's production line in Mochau, Germany.

The WAM tool, developed by BrightView in Israel, has, according to the company, "successfully demonstrated its contribution to both panel efficiency and line productivity via its in-line, true-cell-metrology and measurement capabilities and associated suite of control applications for excursion detection, chamber matching and process window optimization."

Signet Solar has now embedded BrightView's system into their production flow is now implementing fully automated continuous full-panel process monitoring and feedback on 100% of production panels. The system, according to BrightView, greatly reduces reliance on off-line measurements and special test panel cycles.

"The BrightView solution fills a major gap in the industry's transition from pilot to mass production, providing true 24/7 in-line process monitoring while saving long and tedious off-line cycles and test panels," said Gunter Ziegenbalg, Managing Director of Signet Solar GmbH. "The system has been embraced by our R&D engineers, who are finally generating the data they need for concrete process improvements and optimization, and by our production engineers, who are relying on the continuous automatic alerting of process issues, as well as much quicker turn-around following process tool maintenance."

Benny Shoham, CEO of BrightView added, "Signet Solar has put our system through rigorous testing, allowing us to validate our vision in a high volume production line using actual panel performance data. Their talented team, working with the BrightView state-of-the-art WAM solution, was able to deliver major improvements to line productivity in a very short time. We are excited by the excellent results they achieved, and look forward to continue working with Signet Solar on their next production milestone and process improvement roadmap, as well as accelerate efficiency and productivity gains for the thin film PV industry."

In 2008, BrightView Systems raised a $6 million Series A round of financing from Israel Cleantech Ventures and Hasso Plattner Ventures.

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