Recently, the demand for the low kerf-loss slice of the silicon wafer for photovoltaic cells is increasing from the point of view of saving raw materials. In this work, we studied the silicon-slicing technique using plasma-etching processing, which is thought to be promising to reduce the kerf loss. Finally, the slice conditions were optimized and slice speed and kerf loss were improved to about 1 mu m/s and 150 mu m, respectively. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.