Thin-film solar patents, manufacturing equipment listed for sale

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Tiger Group and GESemi announced the two are accepting offers for the purchase of equipment to produce gallium arsenide based solar manufacturing equipment and related patents.

The equipment was intended for use by Ubiquity Solar, which announced in 2021 a $61 million investment to establish an 800,000 square foot manufacturing facility on a former IBM site in Endicott New York.

Ubiquity Solar researched and developed lightweight, flexible solar cells intended for both flight-integrated and vehicle-integrated purposes.

“The advanced production lines available in this sale can be used to manufacture products for weight-sensitive applications like drones that require high-efficiency conversion of solar energy to electricity,” said Kevin Shows, chief operating officer, GESemi.

The factory was planned to produce 1.5 MW of advanced space-grade solar cells for aerospace customers and 350 MW of utility-grade cells for the power generation market. It was expected to create 150 manufacturing jobs in New York and gained commentary from Governor Kathy Hochul. 

Ubiquity solar purchased the solar cell manufacturing equipment from Alta Devices in 2021. Alta’s solar cells are implemented with devices like satellites and vehicles. The company was described as a pioneer in gallium arsenide high-efficiency solar cell development, but it faced financial difficulties in 2019.

GESemi said the cells produced by the manufacturing devices offer efficiencies of 20% AM0 for space-based applications and 26% AM1.5 for terrestrial applications. It said the PV cells have among the highest power-to-weight ratios in the industry, offering more than 800 W per kg.

“There are countless other potential applications for thin-flexible GaAs PV cells, including satellites and electric vehicles,” said Show. “This sale represents a tremendous opportunity to advance your business by acquiring game-changing tech at liquidation values.”

The sellers said all equipment was running production prior to the shutdown and professionally decommissioned in 2021. Limited amounts of raw materials and finished goods also are available, they said.

The sale includes:

  • IP, rights and patents for thin-flexible GaAs solar cells
  • Aixtron R6 MOCVD systems with two configured for GaAs and four configured for GaN (gallium nitride) applications
  • Aixtron Crius II MOCVD systems for GaAs applications
  • AVP Technologies inline multi-chamber sputtering system
  • FHR Line 1100V7 BM inline PVD vacuum coating system/sputtering
  • CHA Industries Mark-40 electron beam evaporator
  • GigaMat Technologies SI wafer polishers
  • Zeta Instruments / KLA-Tencor ZS-280 optical measurement systems
  • Singulus automatic wet process stations
  • Besi/KA Industrial Engineering solar copper plating line
  • Applied Materials/Baccini semi-automatic screen printer
  • Attolight Säntis 300 full wafer cathodoluminescence microscope
  • Hitachi S-4700 scanning electron microscope
  • Bruker Icon atomic force microscope
  • FEI Strata 235 dual beam FIB/SEM
  • Cincinnati Sub Zero environmental test chambers
  • Small module assembly pilot line currently in operation

More information from the sellers can be found here.

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