André-Jacques Auberton-Hervé, Soitec CEO
Soitec knows semiconductors, and that’s a good thing when — like this French company did back in December — you acquire a solar photovoltaic panel maker. André-Jacques Auberton-Hervé and partner Jean-Michel Lamure launched Soitec in 1992 with 1 million francs (€200,000 / $273,000) in startup capital as a spin-off of LEITI, a laboratory of the French atomic energy commission (CEA). Soitec is headquartered in Grenoble’s (home of the 1968 Winter Olympics) technology cluster. Today, the company has a market capitalization of about €1 billion ($1.37 billion) and is the world’s leading supplier of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers for the microelectronics industry.
Eager to leverage its knowledge of semiconductors outside of the electronics sector, last December Soitec plunged into the renewable energy business with its acquisition of German concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) company Concentrix Solar for €55 million. Soitec’s goal is to become a leader in the CPV market, covering the U.S., Middle East, Europe and Asia.
CPV technology involves using mirrors or other optical devices to focus, or concentrate, the sun’s rays on photovoltaic cells. By concentrating solar energy, a CPV modules use less photovoltaic material to generate the same amount of electricity as a flat-plate photovoltaic panel — that results in higher sunlight-to-electricty conversion efficiencies for CPV modules. The trade-off is that CPV modules must be kept pointing directly at the sun, requiring relatively costly and complex tracking equipment.
GER: Tell us about Soitec and the business that has so far fueled much of its growth.
André-Jacques Auberton-Hervé: We launched Soitec in 1992 as a technology provider to the chip industry. Today, our principal technology is the Smart Cut process, which has allowed us to manufacture silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers on an industrial scale. Our technology eliminates current leakage in semiconductor chips, making the chips more efficient in computation applications. Our customers include major chipmakers AMD and IBM, as well as cell phone and gamebox makers.
GER: Why did you acquire Concentrix Solar?
AJAH: We could not ignore a market that was opening to us. Semiconductors are now such an integral part of the CPV technology, so the Concentrix acquisition was a natural step for us to take as part of our ongoing evolution. The acquisition also allows us to lower our dependence on the up and down cycles of the semiconductor industry. It diversifies our revenue stream while continuing to use our core competence in semiconductors. As part of our research leading up to the Concentrix acquisition, we looked at various semiconductor materials being used in the photovoltaic industry, and found that materials used in the manufacture of CPV modules are among those we specialize in. So, it became evident to us that CPV offered Soitec the best entry point into the renewable energy business.
GER: Soitec and Concentrix share a number of similarities, what are they?
AJAH: For one, we are both offshoots of large national research labs. Concentrix is a spin-off of Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems and we are a spin-off of a lab at the French atomic energy commission. Also, we have both successfully transitioned from the lab to become full-fledged businesses, something that a lot of R&D-focused ventures fail to do.
GER: You’ve developed a technology that’s assured Soitec long-term revenues, why take a risk and invest in a new business?
AJAH: The Concentrix acquisition actually allows us to diversify our business, which until recently was largely dependent on a single industry. Concentrix’s CPV technology is commercial-ready, which means we can rapidly deploy it in key markets. There are also various macro factors that support our strategy. Solar and renewable energy in general is experiencing unprecedented growth in part because of large, long-term, government-backed stimulus programs and other subsidies like feed-in tariffs. The price of PV panels is also falling and that will help us compete with solar-thermal companies to help develop large-scale solar projects.
Concentrix’s annual production capacity averages 25 megawatts. Over the next 24 months we would like to grow that capacity to 100 megawatts annually.
GER: What are your goals with Concentrix over the next 12 months?
AJAH: Concentrix is a fully integrated company. This means that we control the whole manufacturing process, which is a shift from our core SOI business where we intervene as part of an existing process. In terms of specific goals, Concentrix’s annual production capacity averages 25 megawatts. Over the next 24 months we would like to grow that capacity to 100 megawatts annually. In terms of efficiency, the Concentrix solar cell has a 37 percent efficiency but we’re confident that we can double that efficiency above 50 percent.
GER: Now that you are an operator in the renewable energy sector, what markets are you targeting?
AJAH: We are going to go after markets that enjoy good solar resource and strong subsidy programs like feed-in tariffs. We’re looking at the global sunbelt across Europe as well as North America and Asia. Rather than become a plant operator, we are a systems provider to developers of large-scale solar power plants. Over the medium to long term, we could open manufacturing lines outside of Germany, possibly in the U.S., but as is, we’re confident we can continue to supply overseas markets from Concentrix’s German plant.
Image: Soitec