Intevac, Inc., a major supplier of thin-film deposition equipment to the vacuum coating industry, announced on September 3rd the order of an INTEVAC MATRIX™ thin-film processing system, by a Tier 1 solar cell manufacturer, for high-efficiency photovoltaic (PV) cell manufacturing. This new customer for MATRIX PVD (physical vapor deposition) will use the system to deposit integrated metal film stacks in advanced silicon solar cell designs, utilizing processes qualified in recent development work with Intevac. The system is scheduled to ship in the second quarter of 2016.
With its best-in-class cost of ownership advantage for solar cell manufacturing, the INTEVAC MATRIX system is rapidly becoming the process tool of record for advanced metallization, and other high-volume, leading-edge processing applications in the PV industry.
Wendell Blonigan, Intevac's president and chief executive officer, commented about the order: "The MATRIX PVD system order we are announcing today from yet another Tier 1 solar cell manufacturer demonstrates the significant progress we have made in our Thin-Film Equipment growth strategy. We are leveraging Intevac's production-proven capabilities in our core technologies, in this case our PVD sputtering technology, and extending those capabilities into adjacent markets."