News

Continuing its strategic focus on the solar cell manufacturing market, Applied Materials has made another major acquisition in the solar equipment sector with the purchase of Switzerland-based HCT Shaping Systems SA, the largest specialist in wafer sawing tools for both solar and semiconductor wafer markets.

The continued demand for polysilicon coming primarily from the solarcell industry has led to WACKER’s starting ‘stage 8’ of polysiliconproduction expansion at its Burghausen, Germany site by an additional7,000 metric tons to a total of 21,500 metric tons per year.

Amtech Systems has won $4.1 million worth of neworders from Asia-based solar cell manufacturers primarily for itsdiffusion processing systems, the company said. The company has received more than $16.5 million insolar orders over the last twelve months. For the fiscal 2007 year todate, Amtech has received approximately $9.8 million of solar orders.The latest orders are expected to ship in approximately six months.

Thin-film silicon solar photovoltaic module manufacturer Signet Solar has announced plans to ultimately produce 1 gigawatt (GW) in annual production of solar modules over the next ten years at a new plant to be built in India at an estimated final cost of approximately $2 billion U.S. dollars.

Ex-Nanometrics Vice President of advanced technology Dr. Steven G.Hummel has been enlisted to the PV Powered team as vice president ofengineering.  His new role will see him focus specifically on productdevelopment for the solar solutions company.

Roth & Rau has won a follow-on order for a turnkey 60 MWp solar cell line for Grupo Pevafersa based in Toro, Spain. The line is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2008 and is being valued at €20 million.

HelioVolt Corporation CEO Dr. B.J. Stanbery (pictured) has announcedthe appointment of two new vice presidents in preparation for thecompany’s expansion plans. Ex-Applied Materials managing director ofmaterials Larry Peruffo is set to take up the role of VP of HelioVolt’ssupply chain, while Essilor Laboratories’ former VP of operations andtechnology, David Bowen, has been named as VP of manufacturingoperations.

NexTech Solutions and FAS Technologies have said that they plan tomerge in the current quarter in an effort to pool resources and expandtheir customer base via current diverse sales channels.

BP Solar has started construction of a 300MW solar cell plant in TresCantos, Madrid, Spain. Phase 1 of the new plant will have an annualcell capacity of 55MW with a total planned capacity of 300MW. The firstline expected to be fully operational in 3Q07.

As part of its attempt to become a shining light in the fast emerging solar energy manufacturing market, Applied Materials wants to lead by example and so has announced that it will be installing over 1.9 megawatts of solar power generation capability at its research campus in Sunnyvale, California.