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Oerlikon Solar maintained a comfortable lead in 2008 among among solar turnkey manufacturing line providers in rankings released by VLSI Research. Centrotherm took over the second-place slot from Roth & Rau, which dropped to the third position, while Applied Materials and Schmid Gruppe rounded out the top five.

Centrotherm Photovoltaics' thin-film equipment unit FHR Anlagenbauhas has signed a licensing deal with Reactive NanoTechnologies for the use of RNT's NanoFoil and NanoBond technologies. FHR has modified its facilities in Ottendorf-Okrilla, Germany, to bond sputter targets using RNT's patented room-temperature bonding technique.