Steve DeCollibus, Managing Editor, Semiconductor Packaging News

Today is the third day of the 22nd solar Energy Conference and Exhibition in Milan Italy. The long history of the show, and the slow growth and adoption of photovoltaic technology in many ways defies the typical technology development cycles that we deal with in the electronics industry. What is a key take away from this show is that this is no longer an early adopter's game, but is a race for product leadership and for the technology that will win that race. The attitude and energy of the participants at this conference is extremely positive and it is clear that solar energy is a primary choice for alternate energy and will continue to be so for a very long time.

Many electronics equipment and materials companies have kept a hand in the photovoltaic manufacturing process. DEK, BTU, USI, Indium, Rohm and Haas, Applied Materials,Umicore, Cookson Electronics, Centrotherm, ASYS and many others have been quietly participating. Many of these companies started with thick film processes over 40 years ago and have continued to support both manufacturing companies and development labs with their products as they have moved into the more refined thin film processes and applications that are critical steps in creating solar cells.

One of the first people we caught up with at the show was Stuart Erickson, President of Ultrasonic Systems, Inc. He was in Milan to participate in the launch of the new BTU doping machine which was developed in conjunction with USI for high volume production of PV wafers. We asked him what he thought was the connection between what USI does in the electronics manufacturing space and what they will do in alternative energy.

"We are in the electronics industry through our activities in SMT, which include applying flux to circuit boards as part of the wave soldering process, we also apply conformal coatings to circuit boards and we apply photo resists & fluxes for the semiconductor packaging industry.

USI's specialty is applying extremely uniform coatings to flat surfaces. We do this using ultrasonic technology to generate a spray that is then shaped by directed air streams to accurately shape that spray. We have a lot of flexibility as to what we can do with the technology. We also have equipment available to do stand alone applications, to apply different materials and to develop solutions for specific customer needs.

Stuart Erickson, President of USI

We are an ideal solution for the creation of photo voltaic cells and fuel cells. Not only are we supporting the BTU process by applying phosphoric acid as a doping material for wafers as part of their diffusion process, we also have equipment that is applying aluminum for photo voltaic metallization process and equipment that is creating electrodes for fuel cells by applying catalysts and solvents. We are excited about the alternative energy opportunities that we are looking at, and are moving aggressively to participate in this sector".

David Preische, Director of Sales for Metals and Chemicals at Indium described their participation in photo voltaic cell manufacturing as an outgrowth of their metals and chemistry business, a business that has been in operation for quite a while beside Indium's Electronics Assembly Solder business unit.

He described Indium's involvement with the emerging solar market this way, "The Metals and Chemicals group has been involved in a number of different market spaces, including Solar. With the advent of the CIGS (copper, indium, gallium and diselenide) process, photovoltaic solutions have become a lot more interesting to us. Gallium has been a strategic part of our business for decades. With the CIGS technology Gallium has become even more important to us as far as supplying the growing number of CIGS based customers. At the end of the day our core competency is the sourcing of Indium, and we have extended that to include the sourcing of materials like gallium and copper."

"We are a materials resource to the solar market and support it the same way we support the SMT and Semiconductor packaging markets. Within the CIGS and silicon photovoltaic processes there is also a need for solder. Indium's selling proposition for customers involved in these processes is that not only can we supply what you need for the CIGS process, we can also help with back end processes that use solder and metallization pastes.

Darren Brown, Alternative Energy Business Development Manager at DEK shared a few observations with us regarding DEK's history in the solar market. "Solar process has been in development for the last 25 years, DEK has been making printing machines for over 40 years. We became involved in the development of photovoltaic process 25 years ago, and have really never been removed from it. The solar market has been handled up to now by our DEKJ division in Japan. About twelve months ago a decision was made to expand our business.

The SMT business is growing organically a few percentage points a year. We were looking to make a step change in the business and alternative energy was a key market that we looked at and that's where I have gotten involved. More specifically the solar cell and fuel cell sectors of alternative energy. The way the solar cell market is growing at the moment has indicated that the step change we are looking for may come from this market. The potential to upsize our business with Solar Energy appears to be quite dramatic over the next few years."

Darren went on to comment about the show itself, "The first thing that struck me as I walked into the show was its size. I expected it to be big but it was a magnitude larger than I was expecting. The energy of everybody walking around is very up beat and positive. Everybody we have spoken to is expecting to expand in the next two or three quarters."

In closing I would say the era of Alternative Energy is upon us, it is about to sneak into our lives as new technology often does, and it will make a huge difference in the way we live our lives. As an industry that runs by controlling the way electrons pass through conductive materials we would do well to consider the positive impact this will have on our business.