GT Solar International, Inc., a provider of polysilicon production technology, sapphire and silicon crystalline growth systems and materials for the solar, LED and other markets, has revealed that two well-known companies have placed orders for sapphire crystallization systems with it, amounting to over $84 million.
Jiangsu Jixing New Material Co., Ltd and Jiujiang Sapphire Tech Co., Ltd., have selected GT Solar for the two orders, which add up to an annual production capacity of around eight million two-inch equivalents of sapphire substrates.
“GT Solar is pleased that both Jiangsu Jixing New Material Co., Ltd and Jiujiang Sapphire Tech Co., Ltd, affiliates of two highly valued long term PV customers, have selected our sapphire crystallization equipment for their new production facilities,” commented Tom Gutierrez, president and chief executive officer of GT Solar. “The response to our sapphire equipment strategy from customers has been very positive and we are pleased to be able to announce our first orders. We continue to talk with other potential customers in the Asia region for our sapphire crystallization systems and believe we are on track to meet our projected $100 million in revenue in our FY12 from sapphire crystallization equipment sales.”
With these two orders, GT Solar has made its foray into the LED equipment market, and the company had announced to do so in July 2010 while it acquired Crystal Systems. Both the companies that have placed their orders with GT Solar aim at building the capacity to produce high quality, large area sapphire substrates; which will help them in making the best out of the expected growth of the LED market over the coming years.
“Our advanced sapphire crystallization systems are built on a highly scalable and reliable architecture that lets customers quickly ramp to volume production with a lower capital investment compared with other competing crystallization technologies,” added Gutierrez. “The combination of our technology and the depth of our regional service and installation expertise deliver compelling value to our customers by reducing the risks of equipping and commissioning a new manufacturing facility.” Apart from these two orders, GT Solar received a number of other DSS and polysilicon orders as well, which had enabled the company to achieve bookings worth over $245 million in the third quarter of the year.
In November, GT Solar International received an order for its polysilicon production technology and related engineering services to be used in India EUR’s first large-scale commercial polysilicon production facility.
Raja Singh Chaudhary is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Raja's articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by
Tammy Wolf
