Manz releases new screen printing system SpeedPicker 1.1

Recently, photovoltaic equipment supplier Manz launched an upgraded SpeedPicker product. This automated system can further meet the various requirements for manufacturing crystalline silicon solar cells. At present, more than 300 units of its first-generation product have been sold, and the new generation product SpeedPicker1.1 has been unveiled at EUPVSEC in Hamburg in early September. SpeedPicker1.1 has attracted greater attention with its processing capacity of 5,000 wafers per hour and one of the lowest breakage rates of similar products on the market today. Antonio Schmidt, general manager of sales of Manz crystalline silicon solar products, said: "Because each machine has only a 0.05% breakage rate, our system is more accurate than other similar systems."

Between the company's founding in 1987 and the introduction of SpeedPicker 1.0 in 2010, Manz had sold more than 1,000 automation systems with delta robots. Such systems were needed for loading/unloading equipment in production lines. However, the technology had been limited in terms of size, speed and cost, so the redesigned SpeedPicker replaced the old systems. The new system not only has higher precision, but is also almost half the size of other comparable systems on the market - depending on its construction, it only requires a maximum of seven square meters of space. From the customer's point of view, Manz was able to cut its customers' investment and after-sales service costs in half. "In addition to this, we have succeeded in making the new generation of systems even more intuitive and easier to operate. The attractive price is also an important reference factor for manufacturers. Due to the current continuous decline in market prices, all manufacturers have to improve the operating economy of their production lines. And efficient automation is often the first step to achieve this goal," said Dieter Manz, founder and CEO of Manz.

The SpeedPicker1.1 has one or two carbon arms that can rotate at top speed, pivoting on linear axes for absolute precision. A newly developed Bernoulli clamp and a special image processing system ensure perfect alignment of the wafers and provide 100% breakage control for loading/unloading equipment. The system can be configured in a variety of ways, for example with five or eight transport lanes, one or two arms, with wafer cassettes or stacking boxes - this is important when integrating it into existing production lines.