TSMC Solar exclusive: Company head YC Chao talks about ...

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TSMC Solar exclusive: Company head YC Chao talks about the deep-pocketed CIGSSe thin-film start-up
http://www.pv-tech.org/chip_shots_blog/13387 By Tom Cheyney - 12 October 2011

TSMC Solars YC Chao didnt want to give the wrong impression about the company he runs the wholly owned subsidiary of the mighty semiconductor foundry is, after all, a start-up. But there are areas where we are not like a start-up, he explained I do not go out and raise money. And I do not brag about the future. We certainly have our own vision how the future is going to be and what we need to do in order to be successful, but we walk our talk, and we do not talk very much. The company president did talk at length from Taiwan via a video teleconferencing link at TSMCs North America headquarters recently, in advance of the units regional coming-out party at Solar Power International 2011 in Dallas. TSMC Solar Ltd. has been largely in silent-running mode since it was officially incorporated in April, with US$433 million of investment from the parent corporation, according to Taiwan stock exchange filings. After breaking ground on a new factory site across the street from the Fab 15 300mm mega-complex in Taichung last September, the initial production portion of the six-story, 700,000 sq ft copper-indiumgallium-sulfur-(di)selenide (CIGSSe) thin-film PV facilitynamed the S-Fabis almost fully equipped and ramping rapidly, with first commercial product shipping early next year. We will start with 100MW, slowly adding tools like annealing and MOCVD for that, but the majority of tools are there to handle up to 100MW, he said. We will have at least 53MW annual capacity by next year, noting that figure may be conservative. Once fully fit out, three lines will be operating in the fab building. Chao said that the combined capacity of those lines should increase from 300MW to closer to 450MW, as capability improvements in productivity, efficiencies, and the like are factored in. If all goes according to plan, a second, similar sized facility could be built nearby as part of a second phase in 2014-2015, bringing the total capacity close to a gigawatt, with other future manufacturing locations likely to be sited in large markets like India, China, Europe, and the US. He hoped that first glass would be running by early October. We actually have tools now for our first line, though not all are fully installed, and are able to go from glass in to finished module out. The sputtering tool arrived the latest from Germany, so we are finishing what they call tier 1, tier 2 commissioning and activation, and we are installing the so-called recipe and checking the process window. This puts TSMC Solar on track to start increasing its run rate in October, so that by the end of the month, if we have a stable line, with good yield, good quality, we can start shipping the modules made to testing bodies like TUV, UL, IEC, etc. If the certification process goes smoothly, the company plans to ship its first commercial panels in Q1 2012, with a California Energy Commission (CEC) listing expected in the middle of that quarter. The European and North American sales teams have been clamoring for demonstration modules, but the first demo projects of any size using TSMC Solar modules will be installed on a trio of the parent companys semiconductor fab buildings, according to Chao. During the first few quarters of 2012, 100KW and 200KW PV systems will be racked in Taichung, and a larger 680KW array will be deployed in Tainan.

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Key customers in the US and Europe wont have to wait too long before they get their hands on the 130135W, 2 X 5ft framed modules. Steve McKenery, TSMC Solar North Americas VP of biz dev, said that the demo program being planned in his region will involve ground mount, rooftop, single-axis tracking, fixedthe whole gamut of applications [since] we think this product applies across all those markets. The power industry vet is also busy working with the BOS and the racking guys, to make sure that our product does not require any kind of unique mounting systems, that it will work with the mainstream 10 suppliers, In Europe, my counterparts are doing the same thing, making sure its a product that works in all situations. Weve talked with all the major inverter suppliers, he continued. Our panel works with all the standard inverters as well as the bipolar inverters, so we want to make sure that be it AES or Satcon or Schneider, that whatever an integrator or developer is using, [the installation] will be seamless. We havent come across any obstacles, McKenery added. My job is to seek out those early adopters and get this product in service, start building the TSMC Solar name and recognition, which will lead to increased orders so YC can add capacity to the fab. The Taiwanese concerns ability to advance its technology and move quickly into production has been aided by both its joint development agreement with, and US$50 million equity investment in, fellow CIGSSe start-up Stion and its own internal R&D efforts. Chao said that the decision to go with CIGS rather than another thin film or crystalline silicon alternative came shortly after TSMC committed to investing in solar, largely because of the compounds potential for improved conversion efficiency and cost reduction. What he called the materials high technology content also made it appealing, given the companys prowess in manufacturing difficult devices better than most of their competitors. After conducting some research and determining that the two-step sputtering/annealing absorber-layer process would be the way to go, he sent a team of three to the Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan (ITRI) to allow our people to tweak the process, work on it on their equipment, define our own process. By the end of 2009, the champion cell efficiency of CIGS was established by my team, no big deal, 13.5%, on fingernail-size cells. From this experience, he contemplated whether to start everything from scratch or license a baseline process from someone. We didnt start from scratch, we worked with Stion. We have a production line, our partner has their own; were roughly the same phase, same toolsets and process installing here, both in final stages of production tool installation, building baseline technology. But simply licensing and using Stions first-generation monolithically integrated process would not be enough for a technology juggernaut like TSMC. Although the partners work on several joint process development and other R&D projects, including efforts to replace or eliminate the cadmium-sulfide buffer -layer process step (both companies say a Cd-free module could be in production by the second half of next year), Chao decided to set up a separate R&D lab in May. We got them well-equipped with all sorts of characterization, electrical, and optical analyses equipment and capabilities. Some are too expensive, but lucky me, I live in Taiwan, TSMC has all sorts of SIMS, TEM, and expensive tools next door. Whatever I need in Taiwan to characterize a film that we produce, I have it, he smiled. Another key component of TSMC Solars research and development efforts is a custom 30 X 30cm minimodule line. The company president explained that his team worked with local vendors on designing the sputtering tool, learning from our partners Stion on designing an MOCVD tool and CVD batch tool and anneal, to put together a miniaturized production line. I pulled back an engineer from Stion to work on that. Since the end of May, we have accomplished quite encouraging results by demonstrating on these 30 x 30 minimodules very high efficiencies. Our target is to achieve 15% in October. Now its 14.26%. The [longer-term] target is to achieve 17% by middle of next year. The company has also invited experts from different universities and research institutes from different parts of the globe to consult. What we want to do is internalize what we have learned from our partners but also we need to study the real reaction mechanisms, Chao explained. To form a good chalcopyrite,

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you can go deeper in the reaction path. There are different reaction paths, different energiesthey are incongruent reactions. We can form easily 10, 12, 13% cells, but the problem is how to get there with a good, controllable process that allows us to do large-scale, high-efficiency, low-cost manufacturing. We manage to form the chalcopyrites from deeper within the reaction pathways, and I think by doing so, having a large-scale module and working together with 1 ft by 1 ft minimodule, the technology developed on a minimodule will probably be easier for the in-house technology to be transferred or ported onto the modules substrate. Everything we learn, we internalize and will be ported onto our production. While the first TSMC Solarbranded CIGSSe commercial modules will have efficiencies of around 12% and ratings of 130-135W, Chao believes that both metrics have to improve. I think because of the business situation, we have to have 140 or 145W by end of next year. Not to be successful, but at least to be competitive. Although his R&D team may eventually come up with a tandem-junction CIGSSe panel design (something Stion has been pursuing all along), he intends to push the single junction to its limits for the first couple of years. Without much additional cost and with changes to only a few key process steps/tools, he believes the efficiencies on full-size panels in large-scale manufacturing will be somewhere between 14.5 and 15%. Given the aforementioned business situation, where module prices have plummeted at least 40% this year, forcing companies to sell at ASPs below their manufacturing costs, TSMC Solar is making its market entry with exquisite timing. Unlike other startups and early stagers who may struggle to stay in the game, the Taiwanese company wont be going under any time soon. But the question of how to survive and prosper is still on the table. From day one, I preached to the team that this is a straightforward business, explained Chao. You have to be good at three key indices efficiency, thats the primary knob; second one is module production cost, which has to be as low as possible; and the third is capex cost per watt. For this to become a viable, sustainable business with good profits, you need to be good on all three (knobs). What can we do, theres no magic, you have to sell your modules at a market-competitive price, he shrugged. So if you want to earn something, you better do better in cost and efficiency. So what do we do? We come back and check our five-year plan. I dont want to say I wont stay in the businesswe havent got started yet! (TSMC Solar will be exhibiting at Solar Power International in Booth 1117.)
2011 Solar Media Limited

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