Crystalline silicon thin-film solar cells combine the advantages of the stability and high-efficiency potential of crystalline silicon solar cell technology with the low material utilization of the thin-film solar cell technology. At Fraunhofer ISE the wafer equivalent concept is currently pursued. Within this concept, the active silicon layers are deposited on high-temperature stable substrates. The resulting substrate/layer sandwich can be processed into a solar cell using the same techniques that are used in conventional crystalline silicon wafer solar cell processing, hence the name wafer equivalent. In the present paper we report on how we realized wafer equivalents and explain in detail our development work on processors for both large-area silicon deposition and for zone melting recrystallization. An overview is given on the solar cell results achieved in this area. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.