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6N Silicon Inc. secured US$5.7 million in its first round of venture capital financing that will enable it to develop and commercialize a proprietary process for purifying inexpensive, readily available metallurgical grade silicon into solar grade silicon for the photovoltaic (PV) industry.
"6N's unique process has the potential to clear the bottleneck for photovoltaic manufacturers."
-- David Berkowitz, Ventures West, General Partner
"This is an opportune time to think big," explains Scott Nichol, Founder and CTO of 6N Silicon, whose silicon purification process uses low cost metallurgical processing. "Ontario and Canada have the opportunity to develop a domestic solar industry that includes the entire manufacturing value chain and 6N's technology will play a part in that."
"The solar industry was traditionally supplied with scrap silicon from the electronics industry," said David Berkowitz, General Partner with Ventures West, an investor that led the round with Yaletown Venture Partners. "With the torrid growth of the solar industry over the past few years, this is no longer sustainable. 6N's unique process has the potential to clear the bottleneck for photovoltaic manufacturers."
The global market is projected to grow to $10.4 billion by 2010 for solar grade silicon feedstock from approximately $2.3 billion in 2006.
6N Silicon concurrently announced that Sustainable Development Technology Canada is contributing US$3.8 million to a project to develop a pilot line to demonstrate 6N's technology.
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