calisolar founded 2006 headquarters san jose california u.s. website www.silicormaterials.com silicor materials inc. is a privately held manufacturer of solar silicon and aluminum alloy . silicor is headquartered in san jose california and its silicon purification operations are performed by its wholly owned subsidiary silicor materials canada inc. in ontario canada . silicor also has a research and development facility in berlin germany and is currently building a commercial manufacturing facility in the port of grundartangi iceland . the facility will have a nameplate capacity of 16 000 metric tons with the ability to yield up to 19 000 metric tons of solar silicon each year . 1 to date more than 20 million solar cells have been made with silicor s solar silicon . 2 contents 1 technology 1.1 technological benefits 2 history 3 see also 4 references 5 external links technology edit silicor materials uses a unique silicon purification process which it obtained with the acquisition of 6n silicon inc. 3 silicor materials also claims to have intellectual property and patents on processes related to silicon purification crystallization wafering and cell processing that enable it to produce cells with efficiencies comparable to those made with conventionally produced silicon while using what silicor materials claims are lower cost materials than created through the more conventional siemens purification method . silicor materials solar silicon is shipped globally to manufacturers who cast the material into ingots cut the ingots into bricks cut those bricks into wafers using wire saws and convert the wafers into solar cells . these cells are then assembled into conventional aluminum framed glass encapsulated solar modules also known as solar panels for use in distributed and centralized solar applications . technological benefits edit in contrast to the siemens process which requires a total of four phase changes solid to liquid liquid to gas gas to liquid liquid to solid silicor s silicon only goes through two phase changes solid to liquid and liquid to solid . this change reduces the manufacturing energy requirements to an estimated total usage of 10 to 25 kwh kg . 4 silicor s method does not require the use or handling of hazardous chemicals such as silane or trichlorosilane gas which are required in both the siemens and fluid bed silicon purification processes . this contributes to improved worker safety the avoidance of recycle and disposal costs faster facility permitting and reduced facility construction footprint . 5 additionally silicor s resulting solar silicon has a narrow resistivity range which is achieved through adjusting the relative mix of boron and phosphorus . this property is shown to improve ingot yields . 6 history edit the organization was founded as a development company in 2006 under the name calisolar with the goal of manufacturing low cost photovoltaic pv solar cells from silicon designed specifically for the solar industry . the company then acquired 6n silicon inc. in 2010 . the company was renamed silicor materials in 2012 when its focus shifted exclusively to solar silicon manufacturing . see also edit solar energy photovoltaics companies photovoltaics silicon references edit http www.businesswire.com news home 20140715005630 en silicor materials selects iceland site large scale solar . vieywwtf8sg montgomery james . silicor adds funding seeks more to fund new factory . renewable energy world . retrieved november 7 2013 . http www.calisolar.com news press acquires 6n silicon.php calisolar acquires 6n silicon how did we revolutionize the solar industry . white paper . retrieved 2013 11 15 . occupational health and environmental controls list of highly hazardous chemicals toxics and reactives mandatory . united states department of labor occupational safety & health administration . retrieved 2013 11 15 . enebakk erik ; soiland anne k. ; hakedal john t. ; tronstad ragnar june 2009 . dopant specification of compensated silicon for solar cells of equal efficiency and yield as standard solar cells pdf . 3rd international workshop on crystalline silicon solar cells . pp. 1 4 5 . retrieved 2013 11 15 . external links edit official silicor materials website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title silicor materials & oldid 670413468 categories photovoltaics manufacturerssilicon solar cellscompanies based in sunnyvale californiahidden categories pages using duplicate arguments in template callspages using infobox company with unsupported parameters navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 7 july 2015 at 20 10 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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