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68 SMT007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2021 Article by Narahari S. Pujari MACDERMID ALPHA ELECTRONICS SOLUTIONS Introduction Tabbing and stringing is the dominant method in the market for making crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cell modules. Soldering rib- bons are used as an interconnection medium in this process on the four or five busbars of the front- and back-side metallization. e pro- cess is well established and proven reliable [1] . However, there are still challenges to obtain high efficiency, cost-effective solar electricity. ese challenges include [1,2] : 1. Low-cost manufacture with higher power output. 2. Reduce the amount of silver (Ag) paste per cell. 3. Achieve current redundancy. 4. Introduction of fine gridline print in front metallization to reduce electrical and optical losses. 5. Implementation of simple and low-cost processing along with advanced cell architectures to achieve higher efficiencies (>20%) in the field. Amongst several new interconnection tech- nologies, multi busbar (MBB) interconnec- tion promises to alleviate some of the above problems. e technology was first introduced in 2006 [3] and over a period of time several approaches to achieve MBB interconnection have been emerged. Soldering [2] , low temper- ature alloy lamination (Smart wire) [3,4] , woven fabrics assisted soldering [5] , and the prefabri- cated interconnected grid method (Merlin) [6] , etc. to name few. e MBB technology of sol- dering is the closest to the traditional cell inter- connection technology. e current module equipment can be upgraded to assemble MBB modules. Schmid company was the first one to develop a special stringer machine for MBB modules. Now, several Chinese equipment manufactur- Factors Affecting Quality of Solder Joints in Multi-Busbar Interconnection