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Roth & Rau AG and Innovalight have together completed the world’s first silicon-ink based solar cell production line, installed at Innovalight’s Sunnyvale, California facility. The line has reached operational capability and its initial capacity of 10MW can be scaled to several hundred megawatts, according to the companies.

Installation of the majority of the solar cell manufacturing equipment was carried out by Roth & Rau, while Innovalight's custom proprietary inkjet printing platform and silicon-ink manufacturing systems formed essential elements of the new production line, which incorporates the cost benefits of crystal silicon wafer technology with the silicon-ink processing technology to produce low cost, high performance solar cells.

“The potential to lower costs by combining Innovalight's silicon-ink platform and conventional silicon solar cell technology is very impressive,” said Dr. Dietmar Roth, CEO of Roth & Rau AG. “Combining the strength of Roth & Rau's manufacturing expertise and Innovalight's silicon nanotechnology has enormous potential in the marketplace.”