Key takeaways:
Lamination remains a critical irreversible step in module manufacturing, where its quality strongly influences long-term stability
European suppliers emphasize multi-stage and multi-stack laminator designs to improve throughput, reduce downtime, and enhance thermal consistency
Ongoing developments in lamination focus on automation, defect detection, energy efficiency, and compatibility with emerging low-temperature module technologies
In a module manufacturing line, lamination is the second true processing step after interconnection. It appears to be simple that a module stack goes in and a laminate comes out, similar to a household paper laminate. But it's consequential. Once a module enters the laminator, there is no second chance: this is the point where layers are permanently bonded, and long-term reliability is largely determined. Interestingly, we received additional input beyond the survey table from 2 European manufacturers.
Mondragon’s Haitz Alzola was short and crisp in his key highlights of lamination solutions. One of the recent developments associated with the laminator platform is an integrated frame loading to avoid edge pinching. The rest of the emphasis was on a range of membrane-free, metal-plate laminator options with controlled double-sided heating. However, these products have not been listed in the current survey. These laminators, which also come in multi-stack configurations, enable uniform lamination without relying on frames to avoid edge pinching.
Another laminator supplier from Europe, Robert Bürkle GmbH, is promoting its multi-stack 3-stage laminator platform. In the first chamber, an initial vacuum and prepress step removes trapped air while preheating the module stack. This is followed by a second chamber featuring a flat metal press, where the actual crosslinking of the encapsulant occurs. The third chamber mirrors the second in mechanical design but uses water-cooled metal plates to bring the module down to room temperature before discharge. This staged approach eliminates the need for cooling fans along the conveyor, which are commonly used in conventional laminator designs, according to Bürkle’s Pascal Maulbetsch.
Another defining characteristic of Bürkle’s technology is its multi-stack design. Using oil-heated metal plates, the company reports highly uniform temperature distribution, with deviations of less than ±1 °C across the surface. Compared to traditional single-stack laminators, the multi-stack concept also introduces a level of operational redundancy.
In the event of a membrane-related issue at one level, production can continue on the remaining stacks at close to full capacity, allowing membrane replacement to be completed within a short timeframe without shutting down the entire system. The laminator supports high throughput in a smaller footprint. As a reference, Maulbetsch emphasized that the company’s laminators installed at 3SUN’s HJT panel fab in Italy process 14 modules in about 7 minutes, with an overall manufacturing capacity of 500 MW per tool.
From a technology perspective, Bürkle is working to improve efficiency, recipes, and cycle times, and collaborating on R&D projects with EU institutes, including Fraunhofer ISE and ISC Konstanz. The company also highlighted its fully automated lab laminators, designed to replicate production conditions, allowing customers to develop and validate lamination recipes at the lab-scale before transferring them directly to manufacturing lines. This is especially valuable when introducing new encapsulants or module structures, enabling process optimization without interrupting factory output.
As part of future development, the company is evaluating integrating vision systems and AI-assisted inspection after lamination to help operators detect defects such as bubbles. Another point of optimization is improving heating efficiency and reducing energy consumption to support greener manufacturing. Maulbetsch also highlights that the company’s products are compatible with low-temperature processes required for tandem and perovskite-based modules. Record-setting perovskite modules from German producers have already been laminated on Bürkle equipment, he underscores. However, progress in low-temperature lamination depends on advances in encapsulant chemistry, facilitating cross-linking at low temperatures.
The text is an edited excerpt from TaiyangNews’ latest Market Survey on Solar Module Production Equipment 2026, which can be downloaded for free here.
