Manz AG opens new facility in China

In the new fab Manz will produce manufacturing equipment for the photovoltaics and the flat-panel display industry, as well as equipment for the PCB (printed circuit board) segment. With the company said it has the opportunity to increase the staff from 400 in the already existing fab to a total of more than 700 in first stage. “We needed to move closer to the big players in our target industries in order to react to their fast-evolving need for ever more efficient hightech-machinery”, says founder and CEO Dieter Manz. The fab in Suzhou will also house a technology and training center. One of the first products made by Manz in Suzhou will be equipment for wet-chemical processing of crystalline silicon solar cells. The new tool will be presented for the first time at SNEC 2012 fair in Shanghai tomorrow. “With our new wet-chemical tool we really close the gap in the PV processing chain previously uncovered by Manz”, says Dieter Manz. The fab in Suzhou has about 16,000 square metres of factory space and another 4,000 square meters in the office building, approximately three times larger than the former factory.