interview business
rhombus4
now, but it’s an area that we continue to watch very
closely. Q
Environmental awareness of chemical pollution
is greater than ever before. Does this affect the
way you go about your business?
Q
What’s your take on the terrestrial solar market?
A
AkzoNobel’s approach is that sustainability offers us
a business case to discriminate ourselves. At the
A
I think the terrestrial III-V solar cell market is real - corporate level this is getting significant attention. More
there have been several projects underway, for specifically, in the HPMO business, our major impact on
example in Spain and Australia. This sector has continued the environment is in the way in which we produce these
to grow through the deepest part of the economic crisis, chemicals. We see that there are actual benefits from
but it has been affected by difficulties to get financing. producing these chemicals in the larger scale metal-alkyls
There are some delays in these projects, so momentum production environment. We can maximize production
needs to be regained. What I see going forward is that III- synergies there, and we are well integrated with the raw
V terrestrial will have its spot among the other solar cell materials, which is always efficient from an environmental
technologies, and as it advances, it will need to compete point of view. We are also connected to the grid in the
on a cost per Watt basis with them. plant that provides pollution prevention and recycling
systems.
Over the past couple of years competing technologies
have developed that are based on traditional silicon solar
cells – where we are not particularly active – and in thin Q
Replacing an empty metalorganic source with a
fresh one is a potentially dangerous activity. Are
films, which is basically glass that is coated with either an you working to reduce the chances of this process
active layer of CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide), leading to a potentially lethal accident?
micro-crystalline silicon or amorphous silicon. This is an
area of growth for us.
A
Safety has always been AkzoNobel’s number one
priority and this is not about to change. We set firm AkzoNobel’s
These panels always require conductive oxide layers that targets for all of our businesses and continuously audit bubbler range
should be transparent to light - the so-called TCO-layer - our operations. In the HPMO area we try to do as much includes
and one of the technologies that can be used for this is safety education and training as possible on a one-on-one Hiperquad and
based on zinc oxide. This can be applied by sputtering. basis with our customers. We had a program to Hiperloop
investigate which type of glove is most resistant to small systems for
However, it is better to use an MOCVD process based on droplets of MO sources. We found that leather gloves are TMIn (Trimethyl
diethyl-zinc, because this gives a superior layer structure, by far the best to wear, which was not the industry Indium) delivery
particularly in the scattering of light into the active layer. practice. They provide chemical resistivity and thermal that have a very
We have become a major supplier of high purity “DEZn insulation. stable flow and
TCO” to this industry, which can use up to 20 tonnes per very high
customer per year. That’s a challenge. They want What I feel myself, coming from my earlier jobs in source
semiconductor-grade quality at bulk chemical pricing. AkzoNobel’s bulk metal alkyl side of the business, is that utilization
Q
So are III-V chipmakers still your largest
business?
A
Right now they are, but the thin-film solar industry is
about to take off. Many of these customers are in a
ramp-up phase, and it will quite soon overtake the MO-III
segment. It doesn’t mean that we will neglect the MO-III
part of the business – it is still very important, and there
are technology synergies in the way we service both
markets.
Q
Silicon chipmakers are now looking to other
materials to maintain the march of Moore’s Law.
Is this a market for you?
A
We reassessed our business strategy in the middle
of 2008, and we decided to focus on MO-III
sources and dopants for the III-V industry, as well as
DEZn for thin-film solar. We produce titanium, hafnium
and zirconium metallocene-type chemicals in a plant in
The Netherlands, but we have decided to not actively
pursue the silicon market.
November / December 2009 www.compoundsemiconductor.net 39
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