This paper presents the development of industrial-sized p-type passivated emitter and rear cells (PERCs) with a selective emitter (SE) structure. We focus on different assisted passivation schemes and use nitric acid oxidation of silicon (NAOS) to form an ultrathin SiO2 layer. The results show that all I-V parameters of the PERCs are significantly modified when SiO2 is present on the front and/or rear sides of the cell. For front-emitter passivation by NAOS-SiO2, we observe an increase in the open-circuit voltage (V-oc) and short-circuit current density (J(sc)) and strong enhancement of the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) for short-wavelength photons. This can be attributed to the high level of chemical passivation, as indicated by the reduced interface trap density (D-it), due to the reduced Shockley Read Hall recombination. By contrast, all I-V parameters associated with SiO2 rear passivation decrease due to the increased D-it, which results in enhanced surface recombination. The different types of surface passivation for n-type (front) and p-type (rear) surfaces are presumably due to different doping surface concentrations. These results suggest that NAOS surface pretreatment is a very promising technique to improve the level of surface passivation and thereby enhance the performance of industrial-sized PERCs.