TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - INSTRUMENTATION AND TESTING - Preferred Components: The drying means includes an air knife assembly disposed to provide a flow of dry gas onto the wafer surface as the wafers exit the vapor process chamber. The drying means or means for heating the vapor in the vapor generation chamber comprises an infrared lamp heater assembly. The vapor application process chamber includes at least one lifter (44) to selectively raise the chamber above the belt to provide service access into the chamber and to lower it for operation; and means for cooling the silicon wafers as they are transported through the process chamber on the conveyor. The continuous conveyor system includes multiple lanes arrayed side by side, where each lane have its own at least one transport belt, the belts of all zones is driven in synchrony by a common drive system. The doper assembly includes: a charge header through which the hot concentrated acid vapor is passed to form hot acid plasma; a UV pre-treatment assembly upstream of the doper disposed to feed the doper assembly silicon wafers; a diffusion furnace and is disposed upstream of the diffusion furnace to synchronously feed doped wafers into the furnace for diffusion firing to form the p-n junction or back contact layer in the wafers; and a doped wafer post-treatment module including UV lamps for UV radiation conditioning doped wafers prior to diffusion firing. The UV pre-treatment assembly includes means for delivering an oxygen containing gas into the chamber. The UV chamber includes at least one lifter to selectively raise the UV chamber above the UV assembly transport to provide service access into the chamber and to lower it for operation, and the UV assembly transport is slaved to the doper conveyor. The diffusion furnace includes at least one lifter to selectively raise an upper portion of the diffusion furnace above a fixed lower portion to provide service access to the lower portion, and to lower the upper portion for operation, and the diffusion furnace including a transport system that is exposed at the level of the lower portion when the upper portion is lifted. The post-treatment chamber is a part of the diffusion furnace. Preferred Method: The method includes: cooling the wafers prior to or during application of the concentrated acid vapor to the surface of it; pre-treating the silicon wafer surface by exposure to UV radiation; step of diffusion firing the doped wafers to form the p-n junction or back contact layer; conditioning the doped wafers by exposure to UV radiation prior to diffusion firing; and charging the hot concentrated acid vapor to form a plasma prior to directing the concentrated acid plasma onto the surface of the wafers.