U.S. tool supplier GT Advanced Technology has announced an order for manufacturing equipment for polysilicon production. The tools will be for silicon production using the fluid bed reactor (FBR) process, which is being increasingly adopted due to its low production costs.

While it remains in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, GT Advanced Technologies is continuing to sell solar manufacturing equipment. Its latest sale has been for the production of Trichlorosilane (TCS), used in the Hydrochlorination process of FBR polysilicon production.

GT claims that the process enabled with the equipment, increases conversion in manufacturing by up 10% The equipment will be supplied to an unnamed Asian investor.

The equipment includes multiple advanced heating systems that increase TCS conversion. The terms of the order were not disclosed.

“We are pleased to have the opportunity to provide our customers with upgrades to their existing facilities as we continue to develop the next generation of higher efficiency TCS production equipment,” said Dave Keck, vice president and general manager of GT's solar business. “Our suite of polysilicon production equipment and technology enables customers to produce silicon at one of the lowest costs in the industry, which strengthens their competitive advantage.”

GT Advanced Technologies entered filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October of last year. The company’s problems resulted from a deal to supply sapphire to Apple. GT had built sizable sapphire manufacturing capacity to supply Apple, however when Apple switched supplier GT suffered huge loses.

Poly trends

Modified Siemens reactors are still the most commonly used process for polysilicon production to supply the solar industry. However FBR production is growing in market share each year.

Norway’s REC Silicon pioneered polysilicon production using the FBR process at its U.S. manufacturing facilities. It produced over 15,000 MT of FBR polysilicon in 2014. Polysilicon market leader GCL Poly is developing a 25,000 MT FBR polysilicon facility currently in China.

The forthcoming March edition of pv magazine will include a full polysilicon production ranking.