Machine Vision Technology Gives Solar Cell Manufacturers New Opportunities to Increase Productivity and Lower Costs

WATERLOO, ON -- (Marketwire) -- 03/18/09 -- DALSA Corporation (TSX: DSA), a global leader in machine vision technology, today announced its entrance into the solar cell inspection market. The company's efficiencies and expertise in area scan, line scan, and embedded processing for inspection in the flat-panel display industry are now being successfully applied to solar cell inspection, resulting in high quality, yet cost-effective inspection capabilities for the solar cell industry.

"The solar cell inspection market demands high quality and high volume production; this is where DALSA's capabilities provide a distinct competitive advantage," comments Philip Colet, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at DALSA. Machine vision is used for three general purposes by solar cell manufacturers: product inspection; identification and tracking; and lastly, product assembly. "DALSA's cameras and hardware are used in the initial part of the quality inspection process to verify patterns and edges, inspect coatings, and to check for micro-cracks. The precision of DALSA's image capture and processing technology contributes to the immediate and accurate detection of defects in this critical stage of the manufacturing process."

Solar cell manufacturers are under pressure to drive down costs in order to achieve "grid parity," the point at which the cost of solar energy is roughly equivalent to the cost of conventional power distributed on electric grids. Analysts forecast that his may occur in 2011 as module prices continue to drop.