September 3, 2008

Taoyuan, Taiwan: Sunwell Starts Thin Film Production

Sunwell, a wholly owned subsidiary of CMC Magnetics (Taiwan), has started mass production at its Taiwan based thin film PV plant. In the past month more than 10,000 solar panels were produced with an Oerlikon Solar end-to-end fabrication solution. All contract parameters for SOP (start of production) were met nearly one month early.

This represents a "time to revenue" achievement of less than nine months from delivery of equipment. Once again, Oerlikon Solar says the company is demonstrating that it can deliver on its promises.

"It was amazing to see how quickly and professionally Oerlikon Solar experts were able to commission our facility. This experience gives us a great deal of confidence in our plans to expand Sunwell's manufacturing capacity to gigawatt level production in the coming years", states Bob Wong, Chairman of CMC Magnetics. The facility is based on amorphous silicon thin film technology and has a yearly production capacity of 40 MWp.

Sunwell's initial tranche of modules is designated to be integrated in a large scale solar farm project; thousands of panels have already been shipped.

"With Sunwell in mass production, Oerlikon Solar's first Asian customer is becoming a leading supplier in the rapidly growing Asian thin film solar panel market, and they're doing it with our technology. We see this as an important milestone for both Sunwell and Oerlikon Solar", says Jeannine Sargent, CEO Oerlikon Solar.

Sunwell and Oerlikon engineers worked in true partnership during installation and production ramp-up. Sunwell engineers have participated in the whole process and successfully resolved critical issues together with Oerlikon experts. In order to keep up with the schedule, the project team worked 24-7 to make sure all important milestones were achieved.

Sunwell says that they have inherited high quality mass production competitive advantage from its parent company, CMC Magnetics Corporation. CMC has been working with Oerlikon since the optical media days. Oerlikon Solar's state of the art equipment, design and technical assistance together with CMC/Sunwell's manufacturing execution and production optimization expertise produces impressive results. The startup of this facility is another example of world class teamwork between Sunwell and Oerlikon Solar.

Two additional Oerlikon Solar end-to-end fab lines have already been purchased by Sunwell. This will increase Sunwell's yearly production capacity to over 220 MWp by 2010. The two new lines, one 60 MWp for the existing site in Taiwan and one 120 MWp for a second location currently under construction, will be based on the latest Oerlikon Solar technology - micromorph® - improving cell efficiency by up to 50 percent.

Further details about: Oerlikon Solar and Sunwell