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Thanks for the comment. I guess the dots were too far apart.
Not sure I understand your point. GT bought Thermal Tech in May of 2013 and the court docket 1915 dated 6/10/2015 says that Thermal tech is going to buy back the assets that they sold to GT 2 years ago. Is that interpretation incorrect? What do you devine from these documents?
GT acquired Thermal Technology in Santa Rosa and now TT is going to reacquire its operations?
http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2013/05/16/547915/10033150/en/GT-Advanced-Technologies-Acquires-Thermal-Technology-LLC.html
Here is an interesting link to fire issues and PV modules.
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/54145.pdf
Looks like Merlin could address some issues here.
It was under construction in Sep 2011 so was probably done by mid 2012. Link below
http://www.pv-tech.org/chip_shots_blog/first_solar_mesa_construction_site_photo_blog_the_next_big_pv_production_fa
Looks like Apple bought it in Nov 2013. Link below
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/11/05/apple-plant-arizona/3440009/
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/11/29/apple-buys-first-solar-arizona-manufacturing-facility/
So ...three years is a reasonable guess.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/tech/2015-03/11/content_19776077.htm
Is this close or negative?
Not sure how the post is negative. The Lens post is not confirmed and Crystal Applied Tech seems to be in the same arena and Apple certified and adding capacity in Taiwan. (Digitimes May 22,2015) So they may be a plausible player in this. Most posts are conjecture recently but mine are negative??
http://www.ledinside.com/interview/2014/8/crystal_applied_focuses_on_expertise_to_keep_position_as_top_sapphire_substrate_manufacturer
A little old but they claim to be certified by apple as a sapphire supplier and Lens and Biel are mentioned in the article.
Trade journal info so many will discount it.
http://www.graphene-info.com/graphene-solar-panels
Sorry about that! Here is the link.
Here is a link to grapheme and photovoltaics. It does not mention GTAT ....only talks about the technology. Given that GTAT is heavily into photovoltaics it is possible that there is some activity in this area. Not sure they have the financial bandwidth at this time to do much with it and the pay back seems to be way into the future. 265 Kg boules looks like a better direction.....my opinion!
I have worked under many NDA's and the gist is that I cannot disclose proprietary info. If it is in the public domain...on the web...it is not proprietary. Your NDA may well be customized a lot more tightly. Sorry for the assumption.
Someone here recently said that there is no mention of any revenue from Graphene in any GT BK reorg docs or court docs.
I spent about an hour searching and could not find anything.
Pasting a link to a publicly available web page would not violate an NDA.
As of early 2013 GT was not involved with graphene.
They were one of the largest consumers of grahite though and that may be the source of the confusion. They used ISO molded graphite , molded / extruded graphite for various machined components in the hot zone and a lot of soft carbon felt and rigid graphite insulation..again in the hot zone.
As someone mentioned they were heavily involved with Silicon Carbide but always one step behind Cree in what sizes they could make.Six inch diameter wafers are now available from Cree and Cree has 8" in process I think. GT has just successfully made 4" wafers with six in development. They cannot buy 6" seeds for process development. The wafers are only sold to chip makers and seeds are a violation of the PO terms.
As with Silicon the economies of scale go up fast as the diameter increases.
I knew that GTHK was not part of the BK but never understood why if it was a wholly owned subsidiary it was broken out of the BK.
Was it Chinese law, US tax code, HK corporate Chinese identity?all of he above? other?
This answers part of my earlier question. I posted before I updated the web page so missed your posting. Thanks
Does anyone understand or can explain the convoluted / complex relationship between GTAT and GTHK. I believe that it has to do with maintaining GTHK's Chinese corporate status and not run afoul of US tax code. This was always a topic of discussion and one reason that all key management had to be in HK or Shanghai as all decisions had to be local. It was felt that if key decisions were made by a manager in the US that GTHK was really a puppet.
Just curious as these fund transfers seem large and delayed in taking place.
I have heard from two reliable ex associates that the market for Sapphire furnaces for at least LED applications is about ZERO in China.
Many ex GT customers are running at 50% capacity and at least one has gone into BK.
It is hard to sell components as spares at rock bottom prices as they are cannibalizing idle capacity for parts to conserve cash
There may be some dealing taking place under the radar for a big cell phone screen application but that is pure speculation.
Note sure what the solar application is for sapphire.
The factory cost for an ASF was $200000 +/- based on some apple docs I recall so that is probably a top end for insurance purposes....less depreciation??
This is a bit "long in the tooth" but the techy readers may enjoy this GT presentation from 5/22/2013.
http://electronics.wesrch.com/paper-details/pdf-EL1NABM8TGWZG-sapphire-touch-performance-and-design-guidelines-for-display-cover-screens#page13
I believe that the original NDA was dated early / mid 2013 and the agreement executed 11/2013 so this may have been part of the sales presentation.
I never really undersrood why GT designd their own packaging in the first place. In late 2012 they were even subbing out the assembly of their prototype machines at an assembly house over an hour away.......all to reduce the labor force...they did not want 3 techs doing the assembly and had to send the engs to the site everytime there was an tech issue. With a first of proto there were 10 issues a day. Yet they continued to design boxes and foam inserts.
The Mesa systems could support a large part of the demand with the smaller boule size which they apparently could do at reasonable yields. This would not hit Apple's cost targets but as an option the premium may be acceptable to some segment of the market. I have had an iPhone 5 for about 2 years and the plastic protective cover has been just fine.....I am not a leading edge technical adopter and a sapphire screen is not a motivator for me.
If all the majors wanted 100 % sapphire covers on all their phones, capacity would fall far short. As a high end would give the GT units a chance with the smaller boules.
option there is probably capacity especially if someone As you mentioned, there are phones being offered with sapphire screens. Not sure who or in what quantities but it will increase.
Economies of scale will come into play here as a bunch of smaller
suppliers supplying to different phone mfgrs will not do much to drive the cost down. That was the case with Silicon and Sapphire in China. There was a lot of consolidation with the OEM'S with 50, 75 or 100 systems. There is probably room for 2 or 3 max...my guess.
There is vry little if any R & D taking place in MMK ...do not know about AZ. There is probably not enough free cash to do much by way of advancing the 262 Kg process right now. Two of the more senior members of the tech staff are no longer at GT although there are a few lower level staff still there.
I worked under all three GT CEO's so I saw how the culture changed...in the spirit of full disclosure.
I agree that the skill set to tear down and crate is less than for assembly and commissioning but there is an advantage in the later as that team knows how the parts were crated and knows how to repackage the parts. Not to say that it has to be done that way but a systematic approach makes things easier. The Mesa units could be packaged totally different but some standardized procedure should be established.
As azguy stated GT burned most of the temp agencies in the area so unless they take on the trained work force direct getting them back will be difficult.
The opinion of the aftermarket supplier in China is that after the GTAT BK and some quality issues before the BK that most Chinese manufacturers are steering a wide course around more GT units. Also these were mostly LED OEM's. A bidding war would be nice but it may not happen in China where there is a large installed base already. It could be more of an excess capacity issue than not wanting GT units. Maybe a bit of both!!
As you say a lot of what is said here is opinion but a differing opinion may stimulate further discussion and prompt alternate thoughts......there just might be some value in alternate ideas especially if they differ in a given position.
I agree that the internal Apple emails state that there was some good material ...just not enough to meet the cost model. Cutting around the out of spec material is expensive. I also believe that given more time.......months ...maybe as many as 18.... not weeks that the yield would have improved. Running process development changes live on 100's of systems is a disaster. It takes almost 30 days before you get results so that was EXPENSIVE.
Processable gives no insight into net usable material...only that there was some potentially usable material.
This is worth re-reading.
https://www.kccllc.net/gtat/document/1411916141202000000000001
See exhibit 5 but the entire doc is worth the time to read again.
Yes that is correct. AZGUY said he was actually doing installs in Mesa. He did address rate in a recent post.
I can only speak to what was happening in MMK thru early 2013 and they were shipping 25 systems per week. azguy was in Mesa during the ramp up and might be able to sort out the semantics. Operational(assembled, debugged and ready for the first run) vs. growing boules vs. growing acceptable boules could be the difference.....azguy??
Here is another reference to the 2036
http://cases.gcginc.com/gtat/pdflib/1050_11916.pdf
Here is a reference to the 2036 units.
https://www.kccllc.net/gtat/document/1411916141028000000000004
See para 14. I also thing that the number is referenced in the final Apple / GTAT agreement that stipulated the amount that Apple would get per unit sold.
I left in early 2013 and at that time there were no units being built for Mesa. The contract was Nov of 2013 I believe. redirecting / reallocating existing orders started in late 2013 and really accelerated in early 2014. In late 2012 early 2013 there was a ton of sourcing activity associated with Alumina and crucibles and a lot of Engineering redesign activity to improve process repeatability. In hind sight maybe associated with early Apple talks.
Need to stop now so not to release too much Hippo gas.
The date on the email was April 21. There were additional systems installed after that. I will try to find the reference to the total number.
There were about that number of workers working 3 shifts. A build, test, disassemble and crate cycle was about 72 hours as it included a burn in cycle....dead time. They did about 5 per day to hit the 25 per week number.....Saturday OT inclusive. All packaging was available as the subassemblies came in from the suppliers in predesigned packaging designed by an internal packaging team and speced to the suppliers. There were about 20 bays that were permanent. They did not have to assemble the mezzanines each time. There were always some "hangar queens" that needed additional diagnostics to get operational so not all bays were available for the 72 hour cycle.
Do not know if the Mesa systems arrived this way. All the packaging had foam inserts to act as a visual clue so you could see if something was missing.....a hardware shortage at install was a real killer!! Packaging alone ran around $12K to $15 K per system..... could have been more..... and was part of COGS.
The packaging company rep lived at the plant.
Thanks for the objective reply. I appreciate the absence of emotion. Yes a lot happens behind closed doors but leaks are bound to happen. You are correct in your statement about rates. With such a small aggregate quantity as with ASF's rates are not as pertinent as they might be with a commodity item like 2x4's or sugar. And again you are correct in that physically moving them should not be a barrier to a sale. At peak production GT approached 25 a week.....that was assemble, test, disassemble, crate and ship. So if the Mesa systems are being disassembled and create for shipment now they should have a big jump on that part of the project.
My concern is that GT sold a total of about 350 to 400 systems during their peak demand period which lasted about 2 years. That was to maybe 8 or 10 customers which were all LED applications I believe. That market was grossly over sold as everyone saw the growing LED demand and wanted to have installed capacity to support the initial orders. Once the initial orders were issued there was a lot of excess capacity with the "losers". If you recall China was funding just about everything during that time frame to assure they were the market leader as they did with Silicon PV. Mesa has 2000+. The primary demand for that quantity of units would be a commercial application...like Apple. So, in my opinion these units are going to go, as a lot, to the new Apple sapphire supplier or other smart phone manufacturer's sapphire supplier. Moving them into the saturated LED arena does not make sense to me......there are too many alternatives to sapphire LED substrates like Silicon and GaN single crystal wafers.
Also there are enough sapphire manufacturers to support a high end sapphire option in the smart phone arena. Sort of similar to what Apple is doing with their watch.
This is probably more info that most want to read and I cannot point to independent third party data for verification. You have to take it on face value or totally discount it all together. My comments are compilation of first hand experiences, press releases, and trade / technical publications including patents releases.
When I get tomorrows WSJ I will send it to you. Sort of like the sign in the bar that says "free beer tomorrow"
I am not able to say who the company is but they have been selling into the Silicon Ingot and Sapphire aftermarket for several years. They call on both ex GT customers and independent OEM's.
https://www.kccllc.net/gtat/document/1411916150409000000000002
The above Doc was in reference to my question about the $45MM order.
I believe that this order gives GT HK the rights to sell ASF's to a Chinese company who is not mentioned nor is the contract value so It does not really answer the question if a sale has actually taken place.
Lets assume 90 systems at $500K for $45MM. That still leaves 1900+ systems to go and there has been no additional activity that I have seen. At this rate it will take a long time to move them all and moving them all is a key part of the recovery process I think. The longer these sit the lower the sell price might be.....sort of like a Real Estate listing being a year old.
The lack of new sales potentials might lead to there being some credibility to a slow ASF market in China.
Everyone would love a copy of tomorrows WSJ today.
All I am saying is that a company that sells into the Chinese ASF aftermarket does not see much activity. They are there and follow the market. Take it at face value and do with it as you see fit. HUGE is your term not mine.
As far as the $45 MM sale is concerned I do not read every court release as I am not buying or selling. I was asking a legitimate question if any one knew what the status of that order was. There are a lot of questions about court activity here.
For what it is worth ....a past business associate that sells into the ASF aftermarket told me that there is no activity for ASF furnaces in China after the BK. He sells components that need periodic replacement....not consumables like Alumina and crucibles. He has "feet on the street" in China and Taiwan and the industry is pretty incestuous so secrets are hard to keep. Not to say that there is no top secret activity that has not surfaced but even the $45MM potential order has not been mentioned lately. Is that still in hands of the court?? Was tied up due to seeds I recall.
It would be interesting to get all the GT expats together to compare notes. There seems to be at least 6 +/- that have first person experiences.
Just a couple of random thoughts. If the assets were "hard assets" that the court has authorized GT to dispose of and the company had a valid claim I suppose they could take those assets in lieu of cash. The internal accounting would get a bit convoluted as there would need to be footprints showing a decrease in assets and a corresponding decrease in liabilities. The big question would be if the asset value was close to the claim or was there some "favoritism" being shown.
I do not believe that GT could give them treasury stock while in BK and without court approval. Does this sound right?
I believe that Apple retained the IP to some annealing technology.
Also there were secondary processing issues associated with what good material was produced and annealing was part of the problem.
Can anyone help substantiate this? This secondary processing may have been done in both Mesa and at Apple selected companies in China. There seems to be several readers with direct knowledge of the Mesa operations who might shed some light on this.
The point was that with BK only 6 or so weeks away it seemed very optimistic. Hard to believe that TG had not put the BK plan into play by this date.
This was probably the last formal Business Forcast / Outlook by GTAT before BK. You may have seen it ...if so my apologies.
This was within 6 weeks +\- BK day.
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-1AHIQM/0x0x778573/57e6989c-b7d2-4041-b7bf-845d281975d7/GTAT_Corporate%20Overview_2014_August_final%20to%20post.pdf
The link between GT and Crystal Systems was not an "arms length" relationship. The CTO of Crystal Systems and the CEO of GT went to grad school together at SUNY I recall. GT licenced HEM technology from them for Silicon applications which morphed to the GT DSS process for Silicon ingots for PV applications
Don't know if Apple was a consideration in 2010....2011 time frame.
CS had maybe 12 or 15 furnaces of various designs and age for growing sapphire for industrial applications...optics, military, R & D, lasers, LED.
GT put in 50 +/- of CS's latest design also for making sapphire for other customers to turn into end items. The plan was to sell furnaces using the Silicon model but with the added credibility of also being a sapphire manufacturer. CS supplied cores and blanks to customers but made few if any "end items"
There was a lot of Sapphire related activity in 2012 in Salem and Merrimack (MMK) that seemed to be disproportionate to any forecast. It may have been driven by backroom talks with Apple but I never heard "Apple" mentioned in 2012 . All activity was supposedly to help the existing customer base get better pricing and availability for Alumina and Crucibles and have GT do the qualification for those items. LED substrates was the focus.
The goal was to have qualified suppliers for well in excess of 100% or the greatest projected demand...Alumima and Crucibles.