Oerlikon sees 50% gains in thin-film fab

Switzerland's Oerlikon Solar (VTX: OERL.VX), announced changes to its Amorph High Performance production line that improve module efficiency to 7 percent and increase module output, together increasing the fab's capacity by more than 50 percent.

Chris O'Brien, head of market development for North America, told the Cleantech Group that Oerlikon improved the production line's deposition process, which has the joint outcome of speeding production and better optimizing the module's layers. The improved layers increase efficiency of the module by 16 percent to more than 7 percent, and increase wattage from 80 to about 95, he said.

He said the improvements to the Amorph line will also carry over to the company's production line for micromorph tandem cells, which was launched in September 2007 to provide modules with 9.3-percent efficiency. That line is also more expensive.

The company's production lines have produced 500,000 modules through customers including CMC Magnetics subsidiary Sunwell in Taiwan, Schott Solar and Ersol Thin Film (see Oerlikon aims to streamline thin-film solar).

Thanks to a new certification, Oerlikon customers will also be able to get their products to market several months faster, O'Brien said.

Oerlikon Solar has just received certification of the Amorph line from TÜV Rheinland, which tested the modules for strength, durability and performance.

The master certification means that Oerlikon customers won't have to wait a year for their production lines to be tested and approved, O'Brien said. The time-to-market is cut by several months, as customers are expected to need a brief inspection.

"Historically, there's been a terrible bottleneck for time-to-market ... because it can take up to a year for a new product to get tested and approved," O'Brien said. "Now the process to get certification has been greatly expedited for our customers because the processes were already reviewed at Oerlikon."

Oerlikon Solar, a division of OC Oerlikon, generated more than CHF 300 million ($279 million) in sales in 2007 and is projecting CHF 700 million in 2008 and CHF 1 billion in 2009 (see Oerlikon introduces new thin film solar equipment).

In Oerlikon's production lines, zinc-oxide serves as the transparent conducting oxide (TCO) to collect the current. Many thin-film developers use commercially coated tin oxide glass.

O'Brien said zinc oxide is more challenging but serves as a better material because it offers improved light transparency, which results in a more-optimized panel performance. Using a zinc oxide TCO in the deposition process improves efficiency by 1 percent, he said.

A new report from Global Industry Analysts this week estimates that the global thin layer deposition equipment market will reach $22.4 billion by 2015. 

The value of manufacturing equipment purchased by thin-film photovoltaic and organic PV firms is projected to grow from $450 million in 2008 to $4.8 billion in 2015, according to a recent report from research firm NanoMarkets. 

Oerlikon's main rival in the space is Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) of Santa Clara, Calif. In October, Menlo Park, Calif.-based Signet Solar became the first company to enter volume production on an Applied thin-film line, producing modules with 6-percent efficiency (see Applied thin-film line reaches commercial production).