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US-based ultra-thin silicon wafer start-up Crystal Solar is planning to complete pilot production of its ‘Epi Thin-Silicon’ technology this year with volume production targeted sometime in 2014.

China-based monocrystalline wafer producer, Comtec Solar, is constructing a new wafer plant at the Sama Jaya Free Industrial Zone in Malaysia.

Photovoltaics and semiconductor specialist materials provider Voltaix is be acquired by Air Liquide for an undisclosed sum.

Having established the PV cell performance characterization laboratory at NREL in 1980 and devoted more than three decades to photovoltaic science, Dr. Keith Emery of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will receive the William R. Cherry Award at IEEE PVSC.

LDK Solar actually beat revenue guidance for the first quarter of 2013 but the struggling PV manufacturer reported losses of US$187.1 million and exited the quarter with US$174.1 million in cash and US$168.4 million in short-term pledged bank deposits.

A new supply and technology agreement has been signed between DuPont and Yingli Green Energy worth US$100 million.

Multi-junction solar cells with conversion efficiencies of almost 50% could become cost effective as a result of a collaboration between equipment supplier EV Group and Fraunhofer ISE.

Canadian Solar has won a court case relating to an alleged breach of contract concerning its wafer supply contracts with LDK Solar.

Former management at PV Crystalox’s polysilicon plant in Germany are in talks with the company to acquire the shuttered plant.

Applied Materials reported a surprise GAAP operating loss for its Energy and Environmental Solutions (EES) segment of US$322 million that included impairment charges of US$278 million. Non-GAAP operating loss was US$34 million.