Monday, November 19, 2007

Applied Materials Buys Photovoltaics Firm

Santa Clara-based Applied Materials said early today that it has entered an agreement to acquire Baccini S. p. A., a supplier of process equipment for manufacturing crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells. Applied Materials said it will pay approximately $330M in cash for the firm, which is based in Treviso, Italy. Baccini was founded in 1967, and provides metallization and test systems which are used to monitor processing of c-Si solar cells. Applied Materials said that it expects the transaction to complete in early 2008.