Dow Electronic Materials broke ground on its new Eastern China manufacturing facility, located at the company’s Zhangjiagang site in JiangSu Province, approximately 98 kilometers from Shanghai. City government officials and employees took part in the groundbreaking event.
Heraeus finalized and closed its purchase of H.C. Starck’s Conductive Polymers Business Group on December 1 and will be integrating the Clevios product portfolio into its conductive polymers division. The companies have both agreed not to disclose the purchase price, but Heraeus does look forward to offering its customers in the electronics industry a broader assortment of coating materials.
GT Solar has received the first orders for its sapphire crystallization system. The two orders, which total more than US$84 million, are from Jiangsu Jixing New Material and Jiujiang Sapphire Tech and mark GT Solar's entry into LED equipment market.
AU Optronics (AUO) and Evonik have consolidated their business relationship by signing a solar and green energy planning, manufacturing and research and development deal. The non-exclusive agreement will see both companies pool their resources in an attempt to increase their presence in the renewable energy market.
The dispute between China Sunergy and REC Wafer Norway continues as China Sunergy released an update on the court proceedings. On November 5, 2010, the Supreme Court of the People’s Republic of China made a final binding decision that the Jiangsu Higher Court will have jurisdiction over the case.
Sustained strong demand has led solar wafer producer, PV Crystalox Solar to publically provide a longer-range insight into its capacity expansion plans through to the end of 2012.
Avantor Performance Materials is to change the name of Mallinckrodt Chemicals to Macron Chemicals in a bid to move further away from the former Mallinckrodt Baker identity. The rebranding, which will take effect from March 7, 2011, will not involve any product or manufacturing alterations.
A significant increase in sales and bookings has forced GT Solar to raise its revenue guidance after reporting on its second fiscal quarter sales of US$229.3 million. This represented nearly a 70% growth over reported sales of US$135.2 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2011 and approximately 120% growth over the second quarter of last fiscal year when sales were reported at US$104.2 million. GT Solar reported an order backlog of US$1.16 billion, with US$544.6 million in its polysilicon segment and US$601.1 million in its PV segment.
MEMC Electronic Materials reported a 31% sequential increase in solar materials sales, primarily from wafers, in its third-quarter results. A 20% increase in shipments and modest improvement in wafer ASPs helped sales for the group reach sales of US$503.1 million, up 12.2% from US$448.3 million in the second quarter of 2010. Its subsidiary, SunEdison, reported sales of US$21.5 million and has 1,023MW in its project pipeline, of which 155MW is under construction.
