The semiconductor and solar-cell manufacturing industries share a key metric of production demand and capacity---wafer supply and usage.
The two silicon-hungry sectors also share another, related concern: a shortage of polysilicon that has already had a deleterious impact on the wafer supply, especially on the solar side.
A range of solar-cell and module makers and poly/wafer supplier have signed long-term deals that "guarantee" the cell and panel manufacturers will have the wafers they need as they ramp additional capacity to meet the growing global appetite for solar-energy solutions. So when I ran across a news item about the numbers involved in Chinese solar-module maker (and recent NASDAQ addition) JA Solar's restructured deal with Japanese polysilicon and solar-wafer manufacturer M.Setek, I had to do a double take.
Although the original deal was signed last December, the two companies did a makeover earlier this month, significantly increasing the amount of wafers that the Japanese materials supplier has to supply the Chinese company until the end of 2011. The dollar figure---$100 million---remains the same, although the payment terms have changed.
As the table below shows, the originally contracted 100,000 wafers per month for the second half of this year has jumped to 300,000 through October and 700,000 for November and December. In round figures, that means the total output for the time period will jump from 600,000 to 2.6 million. Talk about commoditization!
I can't imagine a chipmaker getting that kind of volume pop from its wafer supplier in such a short time-frame---"Hello MEMC, this is Intel, quadruple our order immediately, but we won't pay you more than our previous agreement." But it seems the solar guys can make those kind of demands---and the wafer folks can deliver on them. As one can see, the late 2007 increase is a harbinger of prodigious jumps in the wafers-per-month supply in the years to come.
Original Contract Period
|
Wafers per Month
|
Revised Contract Period
|
Wafers per Month
|
Jul07-Dec07
|
100,000
|
Jul07-Oct07
|
300,000
|
Jan08-Jun08
|
500,000
|
Nov07-Dec07
|
700,000
|
Jul08-Jun09
|
1,500,000
|
Jan08-Jun08
|
1,200,000
|
Jul09-Dec11
|
3,000,000
|
Jul08-Jun09
|
3,000,000
|
|
|
Jul09-Dec11
|
5,000,000
|
M.Setek just opened a 5000 metric tons per year polysilicon production plant in Soma City in Fukushima prefecture, so the company continues to make its case for being a leading purveyor of high-quality monocrystalline silicon ingots and wafers, with SunPower among its other customers with long-term supply contracts.
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