Applied Materials: Displays, Solar Panels and Correcting Tom Friedman

By Eric Wesoff

click images to enlarge

This is Applied Materials' SunFab line. Note that standing next to the equipment are standard-size adults, not Oompaloompas.

I was lucky enough to join a group of cleantech investors at Applied Materials yesterday for a presentation and a tour of Applied's (AMAT) facilities as part of the Cleantech SIG Group. It was an animated group of VC and corporate venture investors that included DFJ, Rockport, Globespan, Venrock, Siemens, Battery, Vantage Point and more.

Randhir Thakur, the Sr. VP and GM of the Display and SunFab Solar Group presented. Note that Display and SunFab are included in one business group. That's because there is is a strong commonality in display and solar glass handling, thin film deposition, and in Applied's hopes – cost curves.

There has been tremendous performance and cost improvement in flat panel displays. The potential exists for those price-performance curves to be mirrored by a-Si solar panels.

Applied Materials is already the leader in fabrication tools for semiconductor manufacturing. They also provide tools for c-Si solar. But the true pioneering solar activity at Applied is their effort and sales in fabrication tools for building large size amorphous silicon solar panels in single, double and triple junction flavors.

The double junction a-Si cells have efficiencies in the 8% range with lab results in the 10 percent range. That's low compared to c-Si, CdTe and CIGS.

Applied has already furnished fourteen Sun Fab factories to a number of firms including Moser Baer in India, Signet Solar in Germany, Taiwan's G.E.T., firms in China and even Abu Dhabi's Masdar. Nine of those factories are producing panels, six are in volume production. None are in the US though, much to Thomas Friedman's chagrin.

Cameras were not allowed on the tour so I can't provide photos of the equipment – but this is the domain of the huge. The current Sun Fab glass size (Gen 8.5) is 5.7 square meters and a full size Signet Solar panel puts out more than 340 Watts. (A 10% efficiency panel would put out more than 500W). We got a chance to see the Gen 10 glass size, now used for flat panel TV displays and it is seriously massive. Made by Corning and currently supplied to Sharp for FPDs, Gen 10 glass is 2.85 meters x 3.05 meters.

You can imagine the scale of the tools needed to handle and transport this size panel. Think big overhead cranes, large conveyors and suction cups. You can also imagine the mess when the glass shatters. We wore safety glasses. And booties. Applied, of course is an expert at handling these Brobdingnagian elements. Flat panel display glass is 0.7 mm thick, solar glass is 3.2 mm thick. Interestingly, at these sizes, there are standing wave phenomena in the plasma deposition field that can vary the thickness of the deposited material and this needs to be monitored and compensated for.

Despite the relative low efficiencies, the sheer size of the frameless panels has the potential to reduce balance of system cost in metal, cables, mounting equipment, and labor. Although, the full panel size and efficiency does limit deployment to solar farms only.

Applied Material's blog here. More photos of the Applied Materials facility below.

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Returning for a moment to Thomas Friedman's chagrin. Friedman took a similar tour of Applied last week and in an editorial in Tuesday's New York Times lamented the lack of a Sun Fab plant producing PV in the U.S. and the necessity of importing PV panels from China, equating that to importing Mideast oil. Which is a lazy parallel on his part.

Stop lamenting Thomas – right in your editorial you quoted Applied's CEO, Mike Splinter saying, "In the last 12 months, it has brought us $1.3 billion in revenues." And Applied is an American firm.

Once again, you're simplifying the issue. You cite the German solar miracle – but meanwhile a substantial portion of their magic Feed-in-Tariff gets sent to China. Note that more jobs are created in the installation of panels than in the manufacture of panels in an increasingly automated production process.

Also not being considered by the editorial page at the NYT is the fact that solar factories are actually being built in the U.S. SunTech and SunPower for example. More domestic PV manufacturing activity is cited by Shyam Mehta in his recent U.S. Manufacturing report.

And Friedman, do some research.

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Comments

[richjoy403:]

I increased my position in AMAT by 33% yesterday. This is a company that dominates the supply base and has earned a substantial business moat as a supplier to 2 major industries that are not likely to be made obsolete in our lifetime.

If you see something not-to-like at AMAT, I'm all eyes...please make your case.

Sep 18 09:32 AM

[LKofEnglish:]

outsource to china because chinese investors are not nearly as fearful of solar being a dud as are american investors who are investing overwhelmingly in wind power for their "renewables." sure makes economic sense since the USA already has built out its energy grid and doesn't really "need" to personalize electricity consumption they way the rest of the earth must. in other words electricity is super CHEAP in the USA while it is super EXPENSIVE everywhere else in the world. the only way to make these "alternatives" cost effective in the USA is to make them HUGE. Nuclear was the first attack on super cheap electricity and it has for most part succeeded. we'll see how these massive wind farms do. super huge doesn't work with solar power. as stated in this article these "super huge" panels only yield at best, what was it? 500 watts? that's basically nothing in the world of electricity production where if you're not talking megawatts you're not even allowed in the room

Sep 18 03:19 PM

[Robert Cast...:]

"Returning for a moment to Thomas Friedman's chagrin. Friedman took a similar tour of Applied last week and in an editorial in Tuesday's New York Times lamented the lack of a Sun Fab plant producing PV in the U.S. and the necessity of importing PV panels from China, equating that to importing Mideast oil. Which is a lazy parallel on his part".

What do you mean a lazy parallel on his part? I used the expression in March in a Seeking Alpha article entitled "
Which Is Worse: Buying Solar Panels from Eurasia or Oil from OPEC?" which Friedman lifted from me. Read it and understand the logic behind what I said and what he referred to.

Why are you being judgmental? Remember, you're the ones that put your Seeking Alpha articles in the chip section when PVs are not chips, (read my comment about it in a recent article by greentechmedia in Seeking Alpha) so if you don't know the difference between a chip and a PV except that Si is the common denominator, clearly you are not in a position to judge the accuracy of intuitive comments.

Sep 18 04:01 PM

[jerrydd:]

On Sep 18 03:19 PM LKofEnglish wrote:

> outsource to china because chinese investors are not nearly as fearful
> of solar being a dud as are american investors who are investing
> overwhelmingly in wind power for their "renewables." sure makes
> economic sense since the USA already has built out its energy grid
> and doesn't really "need" to personalize electricity consumption
> they way the rest of the earth must. in other words electricity
> is super CHEAP in the USA while it is super EXPENSIVE everywhere
> else in the world. the only way to make these "alternatives" cost
> effective in the USA is to make them HUGE. Nuclear was the first
> attack on super cheap electricity and it has for most part succeeded.
> we'll see how these massive wind farms do. super huge doesn't work
> with solar power. as stated in this article these "super huge" panels
> only yield at best, what was it? 500 watts? that's basically nothing
> in the world of electricity production where if you're not talking
> megawatts you're not even allowed in the room

Several details wrong here. Our electricity is cheap because of subsidies to coal and nukes in the order of 50%. New nukes and coal cost as much as installing PV. Put these costs in them instead of in our income taxes and PV is now competitive in many cases.

Once solar farm prices of less than $2/wt for panels get to retail outlets especially with panel, inverter and mountings in plug and play packages and US PV will take off.

Size doesn't matter in home units as plenty of space is available. If designed in as/replacing it's part of the roof, it's installed cost is even less. Homes/small businesses don't have land, transmission, overhead or stockholder costs so with plug and play or as built in is very cost effective once retail panels hit $2/wt.

Now add customers save more because they pay 2x's as much as utilities do for electricity and payback is 2-3x's faster than solar, wind farms.

Same goes for wind only better in home sizes as wind generators are now $1k/kw, about $2k/kw installed. Any wonder wind is invested in more than PV?

Small is the future of RE, not huge which is only there so big business can profit from it, not because it's the best way to do it.

Sep 19 08:44 AM

[bpickard:]

US electricity is cheap because we do not price in environmental costs, and despite all the talk about rebuilding the 'smart' grid, it really isn't happening yet - so it is not factored into the equation. If we accurately priced in the disposal of spent nuclear fuel, mitigation of heavy metals from coal, etc. - our price would be higher too. And, yes, if the Chinese did, theirs would be astronomical.


On Sep 18 03:19 PM LKofEnglish wrote:

> outsource to china because chinese investors are not nearly as fearful
> of solar being a dud as are american investors who are investing
> overwhelmingly in wind power for their "renewables." sure makes
> economic sense since the USA already has built out its energy grid
> and doesn't really "need" to personalize electricity consumption
> they way the rest of the earth must. in other words electricity
> is super CHEAP in the USA while it is super EXPENSIVE everywhere
> else in the world. the only way to make these "alternatives" cost
> effective in the USA is to make them HUGE. Nuclear was the first
> attack on super cheap electricity and it has for most part succeeded.
> we'll see how these massive wind farms do. super huge doesn't work
> with solar power. as stated in this article these "super huge" panels
> only yield at best, what was it? 500 watts? that's basically nothing
> in the world of electricity production where if you're not talking
> megawatts you're not even allowed in the room

Sep 19 10:21 AM

[LCACM:]

Nuclear power is extremely dangerous. For example in India, the State of Rajasthan is the most heavily involved in Nuclear power. Recently there was a TV documentary showing the genetic damage and consequently the tragic birth defects that is destroying an entire generation of children in Rajasthan. Compared to Nuclear Power Solar Power is infinitely safer for the children. We also need to add to this equation the safety costs, considering that terrorists now are trying to get their hands on radioactive material. A large part of the cost of Iraq /Afghan wars is to prevent the consequences of addiction to Oil/Nuclear Power.

Sep 20 02:38 AM

[Solarguru09:]

I think Friedman got this one right.
US remains and is projected to remain an importer of solar cells and modules. The factories mentioned for suntech are module manufacturing plants that takes solar cells that are made in China and assemble them into modules. This is a fraction of the overall value chain.
Friedman is not an expert on Solar but still makes a better point than what Eric does. Eric you need to research more

Sep 21 05:03 PM