On June 16, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. TSMC announced its acquisition of a 21% stake in Stion, a U.S. thin-film solar cell maker. The US$50 million purchase gives TSMC a distinct edge over its domestic counterparts in the race for the promising solar-cell market.
As part of the deal, Stion has pledged to license and transfer its CIGS copper indium gallium selenide technology to TSMC for the establishment of a solar cell plant. TSMC, in return, will reserve a certain share of the plant`s output to Stion.
The deal follows TSMC`s acquisition of a 20% stake in Motech Industries, Taiwan`s leading solar-cell maker using silicon-crystal technology, at a cost of NT$6.2 billion US$194 million at NT$32:US$1 last December. The two deals give TSMC the means to utilize both silicon-crystal and thin-film technologies in making solar cells.
The new deal once again underscores TSMC`s aggressive move into the green energy market, including solar energy and LEDs light emitting diodes The initiative is being orchestrated by the company`s green-energy division under the leadership of TSMC`s former CEO, Rick Tsai.
TSMC`s initiative echoes the government`s vigorous efforts to push the development of the green energy industry. In 2009, the Executive Yuan the Cabinet rolled out a green-energy industry kick-off program, which envisions the development of Taiwan into the world`s third largest solar-energy producer and R&D bastion.
To achieve that goal, the government plans to spend NT$25 billion US$758 million over a five-year period subsidizing seven green-energy industries: photovoltaics, LED liquid-emitting-diode lighting, wind power, bio-fuel, hydrogen energy and fuel cells, energy IT information technology and electric cars. The aim is to create a booming domestic market for green-energy products.
One of the targets of this program is to triple the production value of the domestic solar-cell industry to NT$450 billion US$14 billion and thereby create 45,000 jobs, by 2015.
Other domestic manufacturers have also responded to the government`s call. In January this year, for instance, the board of directors of AU Optronics, Taiwan`s leading flat-panel display supplier, approved a plan to invest 15 billion yen NT$5.27 billion to obtain a majority stake in M. Setek, a Japanese solar-cell maker that uses silicon-crystal technology. AUO chairman K.Y. Lee vows to make his company the green-industry leader in Taiwan, with green products including LED products accounting for 10% of its revenue within three years.
Others are entering the upstream poly-silicon solar-energy sector. Lee Chang Yung Chemical is building a poly-silicon solar-cell plant in the Pingtung Export Processing Zone; this plant, costing NT$20 billion US$625 million and scheduled to enter trial production in late June, is the first of its type in Taiwan.
Top Green Energy Technologies broke ground for its own poly-silicon plant in the Changhua Coastal Industrial Zone last year, with a first-phase investment of NT$3 billion US$93.8 million Taiwan Glass has joined hands with Green Energy Technology, a member of the Tatung Group, to invest NT$3 billion in the first-phase construction of a poly-silicon plant in Taoyuan, which is scheduled for inauguration in March 2011. Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp., part of the Formosa Plastics Group, plans to invest NT$10-20 billion US$313-626 million in a poly-silicon plant in the Mailiao Offshore Industrial Zone in Yunlin County; this project, however, still needs to overcome a water-supply problem.
