Schmid Silicon Production Reaches Full Operation
With the successful start of production at the hydrochlorination plant for synthesis of trichlorosilane Schmid Silicon Technology within just 4 months successfully completed the commissioning of its own Monosilane-based production facility for Polysilicon manufacturing.
Herewith SST closes the entire production cycle beginning from metallurgical silicon and ending with high-purity Polysilicon. Jochen Schneider, CEO of SST, is very satisfied with the fast commissioning: „With the production start at the hydrochlorination plant we reached the last important milestone in the commissioning of our production plant after the "first Monosilane out" on May 16, 2011 and "the first Silicon out" on June 12, 2011. As it was already announced in the press release of August 31,2011, at the same time an outstanding quality of Polysilicon was reached within this short period of time, which by far exceeds the current requirements for solar grade Silicon and even meets the high quality standards of the semiconductors industry".
The SST Monosilane-based Silicon Technology differs from the conventional production methods through its lean, improved process with an extremely low power and raw material consumption. Besides the resulting cost advantage of about 40% as compared to the Siemens technology and the highest product quality this production method is characterized by it’s more advantageous environmental balance. Schmid Polysilicon Production allows Schmid Silicon Technology to implement further improvements and thus creates a platform for development of new innovative Monosilane-based technologies, with some already being in the works.
As compared to the competition, the unique SST Hydrochlorination Technology is distinguished by a number of advantageous features. The Hydrochlorination Reactor is operated at a pressure of about only 10 to 12 bar. This results in a substantially reduced energy consumption required to achieve the pressure stage as well as in advantages when designing different pieces of equipment. At the same time lower pressure allows to significantly reduce deposits of e.g. metal chlorides. The SST Hydrochlorination Technology allows to equally using both silicon tetrachloride and hydrogen chloride gas as feedstock depending on the market situation.
Such intermediates as silicon tetrachloride, hydrogen chloride gas, and hydrogen, which emerge from the conventional Siemens CVD process, can also be directly processed to trichlorosilane and hence recycled in the SST Hydrochlorination.
The operation of the own 94-strong workforce Polysilicon production plant provides Schmid Silicon Technology with a unique industry advantage.