Photovoltaics is a fast growing market, which during past decades has shown a tremendous growth: the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of PV installations was 24% between year 2010 to 2017. Si-wafer based PV technology accounted for about 95% of the total production in 2017. Monocrystalline and multi-crystalline are two basic forms of crystalline technology. The share of multi-crystalline technology is now about 62% of total production [1].  In this work, the main trends, related to technological developments of crystalline silicon solar cells will be analyzed. As compared to all other types of solar PV technology, crystalline silicon technology has the highest commercial efficiency, but still require further improvements and optimizations.  Now, crystalline silicon solar cells are approaching a major technical turning point. Conventional solar cells (diffused emitter, Al based Back Surface Field (BSF)), which are currently the mainstream, are widely used and production cost is low, but it is difficult to achieve high efficiency exceeding 20%. Therefore, it is expected that the share of conventional cell will gradually decline in the future. Instead, it is thought that future market share is expected to grow in highly efficient cells such as PERC (Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell), SHJ (Silicon Hetero Junction) and IBC (Interdigitated Back Contact) cells. In particular, PERC cells are expected to become the mainstream in the future instead of conventional cells.  The PV industry is a long value chain, which starts from raw materials to manufactured modules and reaches till maintenance of installed projects. The brief overview of different approaches along the Si based solar cells fabrication value chain, based on latest results obtained in several EU projects (ThinSi, nanoPV, Eurosunmed, Cabriss), will be done.  Perspectives of low-cost approaches, which include such low-cost Si based materials and structures as: thin Si films, Si powder based substrates and layers, Si nanowire and spherical Si based structures will be discussed.  Moreover, such low-cost processing technologies as: spark plasma sintering, hot pressing, thermal spray, spray pyrolysis, which can be used for processing of Si based solar cells will be analyzed.  Recycling of Si based solar cells and modules, as well as cost related issues will be briefly discussed.